Shrine Work
by Peacewish
Summary: Weird stuff happens when people challenge you to a oneshot. My contributions to the Tsukimine Shrine weekly challenges.
1. sacrifice

Challenge: alternate universe

Genre: drama/romance/hentai

Rating: R (not just yet, not here)

Requirements: Write a prologue to an AU story, including at least 3 of the major CCS cast.  There must be one death.

Tease:  In a desperate bid for his sister's safety, Touya puts himself in a compromising situation.

**'sacrifice'**

In the shadow of his domain, all feared him.  From one end of the valley to the other, all land cradled by the frost-encrusted mountains he ruled, and there were none who would oppose him.  The land was fruitful but demanding, and for all their lives the people struggled to wrest a living from it.  Always he watched them and they knew it, shivered at his name and bowed before his power. 

Pitiful, wretched humans. 

Their tenuous grasp on survival bred in them fear and mistrust, and he watched them turn on one another, destroy themselves and their future in the throes of pointless hysteria.  He was surprised and mildly interested, one year, when a teacher in one village stepped forward and spoke of education and reason.

He was not surprised when the teacher was executed late that winter.  How the people despised anything new; it incited a loathing like no other.  Nor was he surprised that the teacher's daughter had been 'coincidentally' chosen in the village lottery several weeks later.  Faced with his demand of one young female every spring, those with influence no doubt leapt on the chance to spare their own girls and at the same time rid themselves of an unwanted orphan.

That last thought ran through his mind as Yue looked upon their offering, kneeling on the platform a few steps away with her head bowed and eyes down.  Evenings were still chilly so early in the season and she shivered in her thin white ceremonial robe, though almost certainly in fear and not of cold.  Her clean scent and braids studded with tiny white flowers spoke of the care the village had gone to to present their gift, as was expected.  She was small and thin yet, but on the eve of ripening to physical maturity and an ideal age. 

Almost as an afterthought, he nodded in a satisfied manner and the village priest beamed from his place in front of the crowd.  An audible murmur of relief circled the clearing, broken by a surprised shout in the back.  Another followed it, and the violent sounds of a scuffle.  This was a variation in the ritual offering, and curiously Yue turned his gaze on the source of disturbance within the crowd.  Several shouted in alarm and tried to subdue this newcomer but he was too strong, or too desperate.  Savagely he fought his way out of the throng and sprinted for the platform.  The offering hardly had time to look up, clearly as surprised as anyone else, before the boy threw himself on her and clutched her tightly to his chest. 

"Touch my sister and I'll kill you," he snarled, panting hard, black eyes snapping with determination.  He paid no attention to the uproar of the village people behind him and neither did Yue, so taken aback by this rebellious display that at first he could only raise his eyebrows.

"It is not wise to defy your lord and master," he advised, but the boy neither moved nor relinquished his grip on his sister.

"My lord," the priest quavered in horror, "please forgive our village of this audacity.  If I had but known he would break his restraints -"

"Silence," Yue said crisply, and the clearing was instantly quiet.  He could see now the evidence of bruising across the boy's chest and arms, the shredded remains of rope still tied around each wrist.  This was the other child of the teacher then, though he resembled his sister only slightly.  The determination did not leave his eyes but with the sudden hush he seemed to become more aware of himself, and the dangerous situation he'd created.  Warily he stood, pulling the girl to her feet, and tried to position himself as a shield between her and Yue without letting go.  Never in their history had anyone resisted Yue's prerogative over their females; once the lottery had chosen, no one would dare incur his wrath for the sake of a mere girl.  That this boy should not only resist but threaten him, at once astonished and infuriated Yue.

"I should kill you where you stand," he said coolly, allowing a little of his anger to show in his glittering eyes.  The boy flinched but did not move or drop his gaze, chin held high and prideful.

"Nii-chan…" the girl whimpered from somewhere behind her brother, her voice reduced to a whisper by sheer fright.

"Shh," the other one soothed, speaking over his shoulder without looking away.  "It's okay, Sakura, I'm here.  I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Yue's eyes flashed dangerously.  "Do you presume to 'let'?  You are my subject, you allow me nothing.  Your insolence invites a suffering that you are not prepared to handle."

The air around him had begun to crackle ominously as he spoke, and he could sense the growing terror in the watching crowd.  In the boy, too, he felt fear rekindle along with that desperation.  He finally understood just how close he was to a painful death, with no power to stop it, and lowered his eyes to the wooden planks.

"She's all I have left," he said quietly, far too low for their audience to hear.  "I'll do anything."

The reluctant subservience mollified some of Yue's irritation, and appraisingly he looked over the boy again.  He was quite tall, nearly Yue's own height, several years older than his sister but still young.  A thin and cool breeze whipped that black hair out of his eyes when he looked up again, his finely chiseled face set with determination.

"Please."

He was afraid, yes, but unlike the villagers refused to cower before him.  That spirit he must have inherited from his father, but he was younger, more brash and full of rebellious fight. 

How long would it take, Yue wondered, to break him?  He turned to the village priest.

"I'll take them both."

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Don't own 'em, and never will. 


	2. words of advice

Topic: Games

Genre: Humor, supposedly

Canon: Yep

Rating: PG13 for conversation, if not action

Length: 1,420 words  
Requirements: Must have at least 2 characters play a game, any game except Truth or Dare.  There must be a penalty for losing or a prize for victory. 

Tease:  Eriol-kun and his descendent get together for a game, and Li learns more than just new words.  (not like that, Tam, don't get excited)

**'word of advice'**

"S-U-N-N-Y," Eriol spelled out carefully.  "There.  I added an N, and a Y on the double letter box, so that makes 13 points."  He scribbled on the small pad.  "I'm still winning."

Across the board, his opponent's expression was anything but sunny.  "I know you're winning, it's your native language.  Do you have to remind me at every turn?"

"All's fair!" Eriol said brightly.  "Still, you have to admit it's more fun than conjugating verbs."

"Oh yeah," Li sighed, "I'm on one big thrill ride here."  His dark eyes scanned the board and his own tiles as he spoke, and finally he settled on the Y as a starting point.  "Y-E-A-R.  There, 7 points."

"Nicely done," Eriol praised.  "Only 24 points behind me now."

With difficulty Li swallowed an exasperated groan, along with a gulp of Coke.  "Should've just let Mother ship me to England," he muttered in Cantonese.  What in hell was he thinking, coming up with _this_ as a compromise?

"English please, Li-kun, or you'll never learn."  He laid four tiles around the R as he spoke, spelling T-R-A-C-E.

"What's that mean?"

"To seek out, like a detective might follow a clue," he explained, and was answered with another scowl.

"How am I supposed to win when I don't even know all the words that you do?" Li complained.

"It's not about winning, Li-kun, it's about learning." 

"That would be more convincing if the loser didn't have to pay for lunch." 

"Makes you try harder, or that was the plan." 

"I am trying," Li huffed, and glared at the board with a resentful air.  He really did hate to lose.  "And I wanted to use that R, too."

"Adaptability is a necessary skill for this game, much like life."

Li laid H-U-T-U-P under the S in S-U-N-N-Y, then directed a pointed look in Eriol's direction.

Unruffled, Eriol smiled in his typically benign manner.  "I'm afraid I can only accept the first word, multi-word phrases are not allowed."

"Pity."

Eriol's turn again, and he arranged W-I over the first N in S-U-N-N-Y. 

"You don't even try to be subtle anymore, do you?"

"It's pointless with you."

Li drummed his fingers against the table, struggling to ignore that mocking gloat.  _Must – not – kill – evil – ancestor._

His mood improved when he spotted a word and laid E-N-T under the C of T-R-A-C-E.

"Six points."

"Very well."  Eriol studied the board and then his own tiles, and Li got a chill down his spine when those blue eyes lit up.  "Oh my, Li-kun, you've presented me with a very interesting opportunity."  Carefully he placed I-N-D-E over Li's C-E-N-T.  "Eleven points, plus it's on a double word box.  That's 22 for me."

Li rolled his eyes and read over the unfamiliar word.

"And what does that mean?"

"Like what you and Sakura-san were doing in your car last night."

Li, who had chosen that exact moment to take another sip, promptly spat out his drink and frantically coughed up what he'd inhaled, nose burning with the carbonated fluid.  Eriol wiped off the board without comment.

"H-how did you -"

"Do you really have to ask?"

Li tried to get control over his breathing and follow Eriol's meaning.  "I'm gonna kill that girl."

"Please don't."

"I'm gonna kill _you_."

"Please don't do that either."

"Can't we do _anything_ without the two of you getting involved?"

"It doesn't seem so."

Li fumed, but Eriol was one of the only two males in the world unintimidated by his glare.  At least Kinomoto glared back.  Eriol only rested his chin on his hands, looking amused.

"It's your turn."

Li selected H-A and E and arranged them around the T.

"Li-kun, you wound me."

"Not enough."

"Such a temper.  Why always so hostile?"  He spelled F-U-R-Y using the U in S-H-U-T, and Li didn't bother to ask what it meant.

"I asked for English lessons, Hiiragizawa, not a therapy session.  And I really don't think hostility is unreasonable, given the cause."  He was too distracted to come up with a really good word, so he settled on H-O-T using the H from H-A-T-E. 

Eriol studied his defiant glower for a moment, for once without a smile.  "It's going to happen soon, isn't it?"

"What?"

"S-C-E-N-T," Eriol spelled aloud, using the T from H-O-T.  "How a wolf hunts for his prey."

"Okay," Li said uncertainly, a little thrown.  Eriol's expression was inscrutable, and after a second's hesitation he started picking out letters.

"Are you nervous?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Li snapped irritably, but Eriol didn't blink.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, you just don't want to admit it.  You are scared."

"The day I tell you that I'm scared of _anything_ will be the same day you have to pry my sword from my cold and lifeless hands."  Triumphantly he finished spelling C-L-A-S-S from the C in S-C-E-N-T.  But Eriol looked pained and clucked his tongue in exasperation.

"Now look at what you've done, Li-kun, you've spelled a word right down to the bottom row, just 2 boxes away from the triple word box.  You left it wide open for me instead of taking it for yourself."

"But I didn't have -"

"Then you should have gone for another word somewhere else!  It's always like that with you.  Only one move at a time, never thinking ahead, never taking the time to design a strategy."

"It's called focus."

"No, it's tunnel vision and it's time you learned to look around you before you act.  Don't you scowl at me like that, I know what I'm talking about."  Looking as close to annoyed as Li had ever seen, Eriol brandished a tile in his direction.  "Do you see this X?  It's worth 8 points.  I can put it with my E and the S from C-L-A-S-S and that will be 30 points right there.  Are you ready for that to happen?"

Li's cheeks turned the color of the triple word square.  "I don't know what you're talking about," he repeated stubbornly.

"Yes, you do.  And it's really important.  We need to talk about it."

"I don't want to talk about it!  And definitely not with you!"

"Who else are you going to talk to?  Your mother?  Sisters?"

"God no."  Li's skin got even hotter with embarrassment.  His uniformly female family was out of the question, and so was Wei.  Even if he was still in Japan, which he wasn't, their formal sensei-student relationship didn't allow for topics like this.  "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I know it's coming, we both do.  And since you don't have a father to talk to, I'm it."

"We're the same age, Hiiragizawa."

"My memories are older."  Eriol propped his elbows on the game board and leaned forward.  "Are you going to be careful?"

"Of course!"

"I was talking about making sure her brother can't find out."

"So was I."

"Are you nervous?"

Li dropped his eyes.  "Yeah."

"It's normal.  There isn't any other way around it, not for the first time.  But there's two very important things to think about."  He held up a finger.  "One.  Are you sure she wants to?"

Li considered the question very seriously before he nodded once. 

"Two.  The future, and where you're going.  I know you can't see it, even I can't, but you can't treat this like the game, Li-kun.  You can't just make one move at a time and figure out the rest later, not once you've crossed that bridge.  She trusts you, she loves you, and you have to know that you're going to be there for her.  So do you?"

"Yes, always."

"Sakura-san is very important to me.  If you hurt her somehow, I promise I'll deal with you myself."

"I mean it, Hiiragizawa.  I'm playing for keeps."

Eriol examined his determined face for a long moment, before his lips turned up in a quirky grin and he ruffled Li's hair.

"You're cute when you're about to grow up, did you know that?"

Li knocked the hand away.  "Watch it, Hiiragizawa.  This doesn't make us friends."

"No.  I'd say it makes us family." 

He swept the tiles off the board and into their bag, neatly boxing up the game.  "We'll play again next week.  Remember what I told you, and you'll be all right.  But in the meantime…" 

He hauled a nonplussed Li to his feet and draped his arm around his shoulders in a friendly gesture.

"You're buying.  Let's eat."

Maybe sometimes losing the game was worth it.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

My family's played Scrabble at gatherings ever since I can remember, and I love it even if Mom usually wins.  God knows from where, but we've got one in our teacher's office here.  I'm such a loser, I actually brought it home to lay out the tiles while I wrote this, so the score counts and word arrangements are true right down to the letter.  I let my more advanced Thai students play it to practice their English, and they love it.  The idea of English lessons immediately popped into my head when I read the challenge, and who would make a better teacher than our smug favorite ancestor?

I've never featured an Eriol/Syaoran scene that I can remember, but it was fun.  I do enjoy their chemistry, just in a brotherly, very non-romantic way.  Poor Li has no male role models, so I thought it would be sweet of Eriol to volunteer for the position – even if he is a bit condescending about it.  We just can't have him any other way.


	3. to tell a story

Topic: Communication  
Genre: Romance/Tragic  
Canon: Yes  
Rating: G  
Length: Just a shade shorter than 500.  Less is more.

Requirements: Something must be communicated between two (and only two) characters either using no dialogue or nothing but.  I went with the first.

Tease:  A shared love for something doesn't mean true love after all. 

**'to tell a story'**

She was good.  And she knew it too, no use it being modest about it.  She'd been winning contests since she was in junior high, had five pieces published in a magazine before finishing her first year in high school, had been asked to write the class play when she was in just sixth grade.  There wasn't any story she wasn't ready to tackle, nothing that was beyond her reach.

He was good too, but not in the disciplined, long-term way she was.  He was spontaneous, dipping into his colorful and active imagination at a moment's notice and spinning incredible tales with nary a thought for brainstorming and outlining, an improviser at heart.  With the unerring charm of an amateur his words wove instant spells, captivating his audience.  And together they were unstoppable, together they were the best. 

They played on each other, pushed themselves to new heights.  Sea monsters and aliens, fantastic beasts and incredible mutations, anything was grist to their mill.  She preferred pure fantasy while he ever sought to mix magical with mundane, but it didn't matter.  They blended well, and once they'd begun the whirlwind ride no one could stop them.  Not their friends, and certainly not _her_.  She'd roll her eyes, retreat to another table, and they'd be free. 

How she loved fantasy.  In her stories she could be anyone, not the dowdy bookworm with glasses and a scruffy ponytail.  If she wanted, she could be a princess, abandoned daughter of the gods who flew with the dragons and slayed ogres.  In her story he was the prince, always had been.  In her story they belonged together, this precious ability that they shared made the two of them one.  No one else could compare.

She told him her story one day, in the muffled privacy between library racks, using her lips but not any words.  She told this story better than she'd ever told any before, put everything of herself in it.  Passion and hope that had once belonged to her characters were now hers, and she told him everything with no words at all.

How surprised he'd looked.  His eyes popped open wider than she'd ever seen them, and fingers brushed over his lips with an air of stunned disbelief.  She waited patiently, waited for him to pick up the thread and play off her story as he always had before.

A shadow crossed his face.  He wouldn't be continuing the story, not this time.  If things had been different, maybe… if there wasn't already another.  He really was sorry –

She'd already turned away by then.  For once she didn't want to hear his words. 

Some stories, it seemed, were out of even her reach.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

I'm not given to angsty unrequited love fics, so I really don't know where this came from.  Just a few hints here and there scattered over the third season, a certain wistfulness that I thought I saw in Naoko's eyes whenever she was around Yamazaki.  Maybe I'm reading a little too much into Clamp this time.  But since Tam went with the proposal, I thought I'd go dead in the opposite direction.  I'd rather write an angsty one-shot than an angsty full-length story, so best to get it out of the way now.


	4. 59 minutes too long

The challenge:  Sakura's birthday

Genre: Humor, supposedly

Rating: G (egads, me?)

Requirements:  Write a fic celebrating Sakura's birthday in just one hour, starting from when you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard.)  Anything else goes.

Tease: My favorite pair actually working together for Sakura's birthday present?  Hoe?

**'59 minutes too long'**

"Delicious cake, Yuki, good job."

"Thanks!"

"I think I'll have another slice.  Would you like one as well, Li-kun?"

"Yes please, Kinomoto-kun, thank you for asking."

"Big or small?"

"Oh, medium I suppose."

"Well if everyone else is getting more, I want some too."

"Don't get up," Li said quickly, and motioned her to remain on the couch.  "I'll bring it to you.  Two slices, please, Kinomoto-kun."

The two exchanged a smoldering glare over the cake, too quick for anyone to see, and then Touya handed him the two paper plates with as much care as he would fine china. 

"Enjoy," he forced out.

"I'm sure I will.  It's a wonderfully made cake after all, it almost looks professional."

"Actually," Yuki pipped, "I only did the batter and baking.  Toya decorated."

Touya smirked expectantly and Li had to bite his lip to thwart the automatic scowl.  But everyone was looking at him, waiting, not to mention Tomoyo's everpresent camera lens. 

"You did a very good job, Kinomoto-kun.  I'm impressed."

"Thank you, Li-kun."

Swallowing a suddenly nasty taste in his mouth, Li collapsed on the cushions next to Sakura and offered her a plate.  In his life he'd run marathons, trained in combat for hours at a stretch, and extended every last bit of his magic to help Sakura defeat Eriol at the Tsukimine Shrine.  And he couldn't ever remember being so exhausted.

Touya didn't look so good himself, and gulped the last of his coke with the expression of one wishing it was whiskey instead.  With trembling hands he poured a refill.

"Onii-chan, Syaoran's glass is empty," Sakura pointed out meaningfully.  All heads swiveled back to Touya, whose features contorted into what was almost a scowl before he too glanced at the camera lens. 

"Li-kun," he grated, "drink?"

"Yes please."  Li extended his paper cup, then saw an opening.  "And I wouldn't mind some fresh ice, either."

He could practically hear Yukito suck his breath in.  Touya's eyes blackened to the shade of Meilin's hair, but Li only smiled.  Payback for the icing.

He glanced furtively at the clock on the wall – just ten minutes to go.  He was going to make it, he just knew it.  Touya snatched the cup out of his hands and stalked into the kitchen, and Li didn't miss his subtle check on the time either. 

With Touya out of the room the tension eased off some, and Yukito leaned back against the smaller couch with a smile, stretching his long legs in front of him.

"So, Sakura-chan, are you doing anything else to celebrate your sweet sixteen?"

"Well I spent all of yesterday shopping with Tomoyo-chan, and Tou-san took us to this really nice place for lunch.  This is really all I wanted."  She beamed at everyone in the room, even Kero stuffing his face with chocolate ice cream.  "But it's such a nice evening and the blossoms look so beautiful already, Syaoran's going to take me out on one of those little rowboats on the pond for sunset."

Touya was in the room about half a second later, almost throwing off sparks.

"He WHAT?"

"Just an idea I had," Li elaborated, with a malicious touch that he must have picked up from Eriol at some point.  "Since it's so warm and all.  You don't mind, right Kinomoto-kun?"

Tomoyo pressed the zoom on her camera lens.  Everyone looked at Touya, even Kero.  Still seven minutes to go.

"No," he snarled with all the sincerity of a man at gunpoint.  "No, I don't mind at all.  It's her birthday, after all."

Sakura glowed with delight, and Li couldn't resist a smug grin.  Touya almost shoved the cup at him and Li had to remember his manners.

"Thank you for getting my drink, Kinomoto-kun."

"It was no problem, Li-kun.  I just hope I added enough ice for you."

Li glanced down; the cup was solidly packed with it and couldn't have held more than a teaspoon of actual soda. 

"Well it's the thought that counts."

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Li could practically feel the minute hand moving toward the 12, was attuned to it like nothing else on the planet at that particular moment. 

"So, Onii-chan," Sakura tried gamely, obviously determined to milk every last second of this.  "What are you guys up to tonight?"

Touya tapped his fingertips together, and his eyes took on a glint that Li did not altogether like.

"Hmm, I don't know.  Pretty nice weather and all.  Yuki, you want to take a walk by the pond tonight?"

Li spat out the teaspoon of soda and coughed.  Yuki cringed, but he had to turn his face aside to hide his smile. 

"Onii-chan!"

"What?  The flowers look nice."

"You -" Li spluttered.

"You're okay with that.  Right, Li-kun?"

Li gripped the material of his jeans in a tight fist and somehow managed to nod.

"Good.  That's what I thought."

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

"But Kinomoto-kun, don't you have a practice tonight?  I only hope that when I'm in college, I can be team captain just like you.  It must be nice, all that responsibility."

"But Li-kun, you're such a great player that being captain would only hold you back.  The captain has to worry about where everyone is on the field, think about others besides himself."

"I'm sure I could handle that with you as my role model.  The time you spend obsess- taking care of your sister is truly admirable."

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

"Not as admirable as the way you fight to keep her safe, with all your flashy magical weapons.  I only wish I could fall back on something like that when I can't hack it on my own."

"What matters is that I can fight to keep her safe, not like others."

Tick-

Li felt it the moment the minute hand hit the twelve and he knew Touya did too.  Both erupted out of their seats, gasping with relief.

"Happy birthday," Sakura's older brother snapped.  "Next year I'm getting you earrings."

"Happy birthday," Li echoed darkly.  "Next year we're celebrating it in Hong Kong."

"Over my dead body!"

"I gotta sword that can take care of that."

"Do you think I'm afraid of you, gaki?  Bring it on, short stuff."

Everyone winced as the pair crashed to the floor amidst paper plates and unwrapped presents, and Sakura settled back against the cushions with a sigh.

"Well, it was nice while it lasted."

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan."  Tomoyo patted her camera faithfully.  "I got the whole hour on tape for posterity.  You can watch it again whenever you want."

"Thanks, Tomoyo-chan."  The newly sixteen year-old girl smiled at her friend warmly, then at the pair tussling on the floor with Kero hooting encouragement.  "It was the best birthday present ever."

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

The joke seems to have flown over a couple heads, so I'll just say it outright for safety's sake.  (Most of the clue was in the title, so if you're the type that doesn't pay attention then you probably missed it.)  Touya and Syaoran agreed to be nice to one another for one whole hour, for Sakura's birthday present.  Unfortunately, it proved to take more out of them than they were expecting.


	5. inevitability

Challenge: Study  
Rating: PG  
Canon: season 3  
Genre: drama  
Length: 1,225 words  
Special Parameters:  
-Must mention a library, glass or glasses, a sport, and at least one famous work of literature.  
-Must contain some type of quotation.

**'inevitability'**

The schoolyard was bare of any students that afternoon; the bitter midwinter cold had sent even the hardiest of them scurrying home and now nothing moved but a few crispy brown leaves, tumbling half-heartedly across the bare ground with every cold gust.  The scene was in total contrast to the library, its heating turned up far too much to compensate and now unbearably stuffy in Touya's opinion.  A complaint at the front desk had earned him a glare from every female within hearing range, so he settled for tossing his jacket on the nearest chair and loosening his tie.

It didn't help. 

"Any luck?"  Yukito swallowed a yawn and shook his head, returning another volume to the small cart.

"No, nothing we've read already.  It looks like she picked out a lot of international books; it's an interesting variety."

"Swell.  Now on top of that goofy movie project we have to worry about a book report.  Couldn't she at least let us write something on a book of our choosing?"

"Don't scowl, Toya," Yukito admonished automatically.  "It could have been worse, and besides, I think reading some international books will be good for us.  I'm sure they're all very good."  He smiled, but it was lost in another yawn, and dully his eyes roved over the summary on a book flap.  He didn't see the way Touya's eyes followed him as he did this, watching his eyelids droop dangerously low until it seemed impossible that he could still be actually reading.  That was Yuki, always trying so hard to see the best in everything, even if he barely had enough energy to put one foot in front of the other let alone do his homework.  He'd defended the movie project too, talking about how much fun it would be as a final project with all their classmates.  But then, he hadn't read the script that Akizuki prepared.  Touya had.

"Yuki?"

"Mm?"  He lifted his chin and made eye contact, blinking in an owlish manner.

"Just checking."

"On what?"  His hazel eyes lit on the clock over Touya's shoulder and he lost interest in his own question.  "Oh, it's already almost four.  Shouldn't you be changing for football practice?"

"Cancelled.  Everyone agreed it was too damn cold, no point in pulling muscles before the season even gets started again.  Besides, I want to get a good start on this today, get it done by next weekend."

Absentmindedly he thumbed through an uninteresting-looking book and then threw it back on the pile.

"Always in such a hurry," Yukito chided.  "You've got until graduation, what's the rush?"

Touya shrugged, unable to supply a good reason because he had none.  He only had the feeling that this was something he wanted to get out of the way before they began filming.  One less thing to worry about, and watching Yuki's eyelids fall shut again it wasn't saying much.  The real reason he couldn't sleep at night was sitting right next to him, skin as pale as the pages of the book he was leafing through, a slight tremor in his fingers with every turn of a page.

The familiar panic bubbled up again and with an effort Touya contained it, bit back the words that almost sprang from his lips.  He'd long ago decided Akizuki had some kind of bat-like ability to hear him anywhere in the school, and invariably honed in on any attempt to tell Yuki the truth.  He didn't want her blowing into the library like the mini-cyclone she was, destroying what little quiet time they could still have together.  What was the point in talking anyway, what good would it do to say the words?  It wouldn't change anything, wouldn't reverse the certainty that his best friend was dying right in front of him and when he was gone they wouldn't even have a body to bury.

Gone.  Nothing. 

Touya almost reached out and gripped Yuki's wrist, but at that moment Yuki spoke, his eyes moving across the page in front of him.

"Hey, listen to this.  'What is it, child?'

'It's nothing, umfundisi.'

'Are you hungry?'

'Not very, umfundisi.'

'But a little?'

'Just a little, umfundisi.'

'Have some bread then.'

'Thank you, umfundisi.'"

He raised his eyes to meet Touya's with a wan grin.  "It sounds almost like poetry, doesn't it?  I think I'll read this one; any book that starts off with a conversation about food can't be all that bad."

"What is it?"

"_Cry the Beloved Country_," he read from the cover.  "I've never heard of it, but it's set in South Africa.  I don't know anything about that place, so I'm sure I'll learn something."

If you live to finish it, Touya thought, and again fought back the panic.  No, no good to say anything, words weren't going to help.  His friend was dying and action was required, not conversation.  But what action?

"Toya?"

"Huh?"

"The book," Yukito reminded patiently.  "I don't think you'll be able to read it through your fingertips, just holding it like that."

"Oh, right."  His mind on anything but literature right now, he watched Yuki settle himself comfortably in his chair and open his chosen book to the first page.  He lasted almost five seconds before yawning again, and his hazel eyes dimmed.

"-t's so warm in here," he mumbled.  "I feel a little sleepy…"

You're dying!  Why can't you understand that?

Touya choked back the words and looked away, out at the dreary scene through the window.  They said death was inevitable, like taxes, but Yuki wasn't really dying.  He was disappearing, and no doctor could save him, no medicine could help.  Nothing could save him but the magic that he depended on for life, even if he didn't realize it. 

An idea that he had not yet begun to contemplate pestered at him again, an idea he didn't want to think about. 

'Are you hungry?'

There had to be other ways.  There had to be something. 

'Not very, umfundisi.'

Right?

'But a little?'

But if there wasn't…

'Just a little, umfundisi.'

Cold death like the winter outside beckoned, waiting eagerly for his friend.  Light and even breathing, so light it almost wasn't there, told Touya that Yuki had finally succumbed to sleep.  The book had slipped from his fingertips to fall back on the table's surface, and his glasses were slightly askew.  Without thinking about it, Touya slid them carefully off Yuki's pale face and folded them, setting them next to the book.  It was a good thing he was there, to look after Yuki, certainly no one else would bother to take care of him. 

'Have some bread then.'

'Thank you, umfundisi.'

He set the glasses on the table and with that action knew it was inevitable.  The idea that he did not want to contemplate had become his decision regardless.  Death was not an acceptable outcome.

It was only a matter of when.  Not today, not right now.  But soon, before Yuki had the chance to slip away from his grasp entirely.  It would happen soon. 

The book he'd been thumbing had fallen into his lap, and with a resigned air he picked it up again.  A little too thick for his taste, and apparently about some French war that he knew nothing about.  Idly he flipped to the last page.

"'Tis a far, far better thing that I do," he murmured, "than I have ever done.'"

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

I don't think I added anything new to the world of CCS fanfiction with this piece; just about everyone's done Touya's 'decision'.  But hey, I haven't, so I might as well join the club.  Working it into a challenge was fun, anyway.

Before anybody pounces, please let me state that both quotations had to come from my own memory.  It's been 9 years since I read Cry the Beloved Country, and 5 since Tale of Two Cities, so it's a wonder I could reproduce anything at all.  My books are packed up in an attic halfway around the world and there isn't an English-language bookstore within a hundred miles of where I live.  I happily accept corrections if they are offered in an understanding manner. 


	6. safety first

Challenge: Beliefs

Genre: Humor/Horror (at least in my point of view)

Canon: post-anime

Length: 1,528 words

Rules: Demonstrate a personal belief through character actions without actually stating the belief in the story.

Tease:  Sakura and Syaoran face a hideous evil.

**'safety first'**

She sits and crosses her legs, smiling a little nervously, and I poise my pen over a fresh form. 

"Name?"

"Kinomoto Sakura," she answers primly.

"Age?"

"Fourteen."

"Male or female?"

She looks at me strangely and I clear my throat.  Surely it's not a difficult question.  "Male or female?"

"Um, female."

"Address?" 

She recites it. 

"Do you have any record of offense, resulting in a court injunction and/or jail time?"

"I'm fourteen!"

I stare at her.  "No," she sighs. 

"Weapon?"

"Um."  She rustles in her purse for a moment and produces what looks like a card.  "Here it is.  The Shot Card."

I write the name dutifully.

"Classification?"

"Um…"

"Weapon range," I prompt impatiently.

"Oh, well I'm not sure.  I think she can hit the far side of a football field, though.  Depends on my own energy."

"Automatic?"

She looks confused.  "Do you have to pull the trigger for every shot?" I elaborate.

"Oh, no, of course not.  Once I name the target I can just let go and she does her job; I remember when we first met, and my boyfriend accidentally became the target – well, he's my boyfriend now, he wasn't then -"

I lay down my pen.  "Are you telling me that you don't even have to hold onto the weapon for use?"

"Well, yeah."

I shake my head and cluck my tongue.  "I'm sorry, Miss Kinomoto, but that is definitely an automatic weapon.  Under no circumstances can I grant you a permit for concealed carry."

She looks dismayed.  "What?"

"This weapon must remain in your house at all times.  A federally mandated trigger lock is also necessary, something that restricts access to the weapon."

Bewildered, she turns the card over in her hands.  "Well, I guess I could put her in an envelope.  But -"

"I'm afraid that won't do, Miss Kinomoto.  A weapons safe is required if you have no suitable trigger lock.  Do you have any children at home?"

"I'm fourteen!"

"Well?"

"No," she groans.

"Well, that's something in your favor, anyway."

"So I don't have to get a safe?"

"No, you still have to get a safe.  You just don't have to hide it on the top shelf of your closet."

"Um, about that.  I don't think I can put Shot in a safe, she wouldn't like being separated from the other Cards.  Besides, what if I need to use her?"

"As in…"

"Well, you know, something might happen."

"Miss Kinomoto, Tomoeda's a very quiet town."

"Actually -"

"Now, if an emergency does occur, you're free to apply for special permission for weapon's use, with this 501(c)3 form."

"But how will I have time to -"

"Also, I'll need to see your certificate."

"My certificate?"

"Proving you've completed a Weapon's Management and Safety class.  I can't authorize a permit of any kind until I see that."

She looks at me blankly.  "Class?"

"You mean to tell me you haven't even taken a course on how to use your weapon?"

"But I already know how to use her.  I just activate my wand, and then -"

"I'm sorry, Miss Kinomoto, but until I see that certificate I have no choice but to confiscate your weapon.  It'll be returned to you when you produce a course certificate and proof that you can effectively lock up your weapon.  Also there'll be a small fee for our trouble."

She clutches the card to her chest, looking aghast.  "But I can't leave her here all alone!  She'll be so confused, and she'll miss her friends."

"Her friends?"

"Yeah.  I mean, maybe she and Shield don't really get along, but they are counterparts and need to be with each other.  And she and Sword are best friends!"

"Sword?" I repeat, and she cringes.  Wearily I pull a new form from the stack.

"Name?"

"Er…"

- - - - - - - -

He drops into the chair across from my desk and scowls, but dark glares don't affect me anymore than sweet smiles do.  I'm here to do my job, and do it I will.

"Name?"

"Li Syaoran," he growls.

"Age?"

"Fifteen."

"Male or female?"

"Take a good look."

"Male or female?" I repeat, and he rolls his eyes.

"Male."

"Address?"

"Parkview Apartments, #301."

"Do you have any record of offense, resulting in a court injunction and/or jail time?"

"No."

"Weapon?"

He rests the tip of a surprisingly long blade against the edge of my desk, casually.

"It's called a sword," he explains, before I can repeat my question.

"Classification?"

His eyes light up with enthusiasm.  "It's a jian, the traditional Chinese broadsword with a symmetrical blade.  The hilt is gilded to provide good balance, with a scarlet tassel to bring good fortune in battle.  Those lopsided Japanese katanas don't stand a chance against -"

"Okay," I interrupt hastily.  "Now, the blade is sharp?"

"Of course it's sharp.  This is the anime, not the manga."

"So there is a possibility of accidental injury."

"Well, yes…  Not that it ever happens.  Except for that one time when my cousin was baking a cake, she screamed so loud and it startled me."  Ruefully he examines a tiny scar on his finger.  "But that's it."

"Any children in your house?"

"I'm fifteen!"

I stare. 

"No," he groans.

"And where do you keep your weapon?"

The sword glows and shrinks to a tiny amulet, dangling on a red cord from his fingertips.  "Right here.  Around my neck, mostly."

"You mean to tell me that it's a concealed weapon?"

"I can't exactly walk around town with a sword strapped to my hip."

"Mr. Li, I'm reluctant to issue a concealed carry permit for something so dangerous.  You could potentially hurt a lot of people with that."

"I never hurt anyone with this sword," he answers grouchily, "not even Sakura's brother.  She won't let me.  In fact, I almost never even get to use it.  You'd think I could have at least dueled the Sword Card, but no…"

"For what reason do you need to carry it?"

"Well it comes in handy when I need to use a ward.  Especially lightning."

"You mean it acts as a long-range weapon as well?"

"Sure."

"Mr. Li, there is no way that I can grant you a concealed carry permit.  You will have to keep the sword at home from now on."

"What?  But what if I need it?"

I hand him the 501(c)3 form.  "Now I'll need to see your certificate."

"Certificate?"

"Weapon's Management and Safety course.  I can't grant any kind of permit until you've proved you know how to use and maintain your weapon properly."

He looks affronted.  "I've had this sword since I was six!  I'm an expert with it, my sensei Wei taught me."

"Is he a government-certified instructor?"

"I don't think so…"

"Then you'll need to take that course.  Also, based on my own observations of this interview, I'm recommending an Anger Management Course."

He bristles, confirming my opinion.  "Anger Management?"

"I don't intend to authorize a weapons permit to anyone with unresolved psychological issues, Mr. Li.  You can take our brief exam, designed to determine your emotional stability, and once you've passed I'll issue a non-carry permit.  After you've produced the certificate, that is.  In the meantime, I'll need to confiscate the weapon."

I extend my hand and he boggles at me.  "It will be perfectly safe, locked up in the weapons cage, Mr. Li.  You needn't worry."

"But it's my sword!  My father left it to me."

"That's not a toy, Mr. Li, it's a weapon.  And it's not your weapon until the government says so.  I'm just doing my part to keep everyone safe."

- - - - - - - -

Sakura looked up from the brochure when Syaoran returned to the main lobby, anxious.

"Syaoran-kun, how did it go?  Did he tell you that you have to take this course too?"

"Yeah, he did."

"Well, they've got some brochures for a school here in Tomoeda, I was just looking at the schedule and I think we can go this weekend -"

She broke off when he plucked the glossy paper from her hands and crushed it between his hands, tossing it neatly into a nearby garbage bin.

"Syaoran-kun?" 

"I am not taking a class, Sakura, and neither are you.  I'm not taking a psychological test, either.  I think I'll just hang onto my sword for now."

"But what about -"

"Oh, it's okay.  He agrees.  And he gave me these to give to you."  He pulled Sword and Shot from his back pocket and handed them over; she accepted them, a little dazed.

"But all those things he said…"

"He changed his mind."

Syaoran took her hand and pulled her to her feet, leaning in close to whisper into her ear.

"My sword is very, very sharp after all."

Sakura gulped.  "Syaoran-kun, do I want to know?"

"Nope.  C'mon, let's get out of here.  This place gives me the creeps."  He draped an arm around her shoulders and steered her towards the door, casually dangling his sword amulet in his other hand.  Somewhere in the building, Sakura thought she heard a muffled crash.

"His desk," Syaoran murmured, and smiled.  "It wasn't very well made.  Not safe at all."

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Belief #1: Gun control doesn't keep anyone safe except the criminals.

Belief #2: It is a citizen's right to arm themselves, not a privilege granted by the government.

Belief #3: They can't take our weapons unless we let them.

Okay, I know what you're thinking.  This is the third time I've featured gun control as a major theme in a fic, and you all think I'm some stereotypical Texan with a second amendment fetish. 

Well, you're right.  I AM a stereotypical Texan.  I ride horses and eat steak fajitas with extra salsa, and si, puedo hablar un poquito de la espanol.  And I have a home in Texas because a lot of men refused to let the government take away their guns, god bless 'em.

Thanks go to Tiger Demon, who inadvertently gave me the idea for this when we were discussing the value of Li's sword.  Apparently in the manga, it has a dull edge and is only meant to be used for lightning attacks and so forth.  But it's obviously sharp in the show.  Only wish he could have used it more.

Remember the Alamo!


	7. attack

Topic: Blue  
Genre: Action  
Canon: Yes  
Rating: PG-13  
Length: Um, 2,970.  That 1,000 cap was just a loose guideline, right?  
Special Requirements: Your choice.

1)Write about a character feeling blue.

2)Write a scene that mentions at least six blue items.

In any case, you may _not_ use the word blue.

Tease:  The wolf is generally a docile animal with a strong aversion to fighting.  If cornered or threatened, however, it will attack.  Savagely.

**'attack'**

The brief rain that afternoon had dropped off, but the sky was still veiled in clouds and the air cool and damp, the streets quiet.  There would be no proper sunset that evening, no chance for the new cherry blossom petals to bathe in its mellow gold light.  Many of them had been stripped from their branches by the short downpour anyway, and lay plastered to the concrete or floating sadly on the puddles of rainwater.  Every droplet that shook loose from the flowered boughs landed soft as a whisper, carrying easily through the still park to Li's ears.

Does anything, he wondered, ever good happen to me in this park?

He wasn't moving, no one was.  Not the two men blocking his path, or the one lurking just out of range somewhere behind him.  Older than he was but not very, indeterminate race, and a very predatory glitter in their eyes as they looked him over.  Alert but unafraid, Li met them stare for stare and spoke first.

"You're in my way," he said evenly.  "Do you mind?"  A whisper of sound behind him told him the third man was getting closer, and he fingered the tiny object in his hand. 

"Not at all," the one on the right answered.  Something clicked loudly behind Li and he stiffened in recognition, and the first man smiled. 

"I'll take that sword now," he prompted, extending his hand and looking right at the amulet in Li's.  So he knew.  And with a gun pointed at the back of his head, Li wasn't in any position to argue.

Reluctantly he tossed his precious weapon to the waiting hand, and at a gesture dropped his things.  His umbrella he let fall just on top of his left foot, with the bookbag dumped on the ground in front of it to conceal that. 

"So did you come for my sword, or me?"

The man fondled his sword amulet and then slipped it in his pocket, before he flashed him a mirthless smile. 

"One thing at a time, Li Syaoran.  Right now, why don't you just get down on your knees?  And keep your hands on your head."

Li nodded compliantly, eyes flicking to the flat sheen of the puddle to his right.  He could just see the other one's hand against the evening sky. 

"Okay.  Just… don't hurt me."

The one on the left snorted, and Li slid his right foot back and bent his knees, as if to follow his instructions.  Then he shifted his weight and whipped around, the umbrella handle neatly hooked around his shoe, catching the gun and knocking it cleanly out of the third man's grip.  Both gun and umbrella clattered to the wet pavement, and Li spun around with the force of his momentum and threw a back kick at his solar plexus.  But his attacker was too quick for him and dodged it, then jumped in with a cruel jab to the face before Li had a chance to block it.  The sharp blow almost knocked him over, in his moment of imbalance, but he recovered and stayed upright.  When the stronger follow-through punch came he was ready, and snatched the wrist and yanked.  His attacker hit the ground hard, a little stunned but not out for the count.  Too late Li realized he'd landed within reach of his dropped gun.  Before he could put a hand on it Li threw himself across the sidewalk and dropped into a skid, kicking his umbrella straight into the gun and shooting the gun right off the edge of the walk.  It landed with a satisfying splash in the flowing creek.

Li rolled over the walk in a graceful somersault, picking up his umbrella along the way, and rose warily to his feet. 

"I'll take my sword back now."

"Come and get it," the first man challenged.

Grinning broadly, his friend stepped forward and shrugged off his big coat, letting it fall to the sidewalk.  Underneath he was wearing a long chain looped twice over his shoulder, kama dangling from one end. 

Li swallowed a groan and took a step back, watching as the man started swinging his blade around in small and lazy circles. 

"You really don't want to do this," he promised.

"You really shouldn't have thrown away the gun." 

He advanced and Li took another cautious step back, the orbiting kama's range growing longer as the man let out more chain.  He shot a contemptuous look at the navy umbrella in Li's hands, his only defense, and Li gripped it more tightly.

"What do you want?"

"We'll get to that."

He attacked. 

The hooked blade hurtled toward his face at incredible speed and Li barely evaded it, feeling the breeze lift his bangs as it shot past.  At a yank on the chain it swung back in a tight arc and Li just managed to brace his umbrella across its path, shielding his face.  Before he could do anything more a sharp tug snatched the umbrella from his grasp.  It flew across the sidewalk and hit the railing, landing not far from the waking gunman.  His opponent twisted sharply and brought the chain around in one large loop, aiming expertly for Li's head.

Li didn't have time to do anything more than glance longingly at his only weapon before he dropped to the ground and rolled underneath the swooping kama.  Instinctively he sprinted for the nearest cover and disappeared behind the great penguin slide, right before the sharp hook slashed at the fiberglass material.

"You're hiding?" Kama laughed, chain clinking slightly as he gathered it up again.  "So much for the vaunted Li family."

The lamps flickered on, brightening the dusky park and signaling twilight.  Li had long since ceased to feel the chill; panting, he eyed the shadows made from the pale yellow light and edged closer to the center of the big slide. 

Knowing perfectly well that his target was unarmed, the older man circled around to the back of the penguin, kama swinging ready in one hand.  But there was no one there.  Li could hear his surprised and thoughtful grunt and plastered himself against the interior of the penguin.  Bent over double and ignoring his cramping muscles, he crept noiselessly to the opposite archway and sprang to attack.

"Behind you!"

Kama whirled around and just managed to evade Li's kick to the base of his spine, taking it on his waist as he turned.  Li ducked to avoid his swinging blade and then shot his left leg out in the opposite direction, nailing Gun right in the solar plexus.  He barely turned his head in time to avoid a heavy blow, but he didn't have enough time to dodge Kama's reverse swing completely.  As it was, the blunt end smacked him painfully just above the ear and he stumbled.

The world swam a bit, and desperately he blinked to clear his vision.  Sensing the next attack, he whipped around with his arm raised to block Gun's next jab, then slammed his shin just behind Gun's knee.  The man buckled, and then the lethal point of the kama was almost on him.  Li barely twisted out of its path and tried to step away, only to realize that this time Kama had not been aiming for his face.  An expert flick of the wrist brought the chain around Li's neck and the heavy blade swung back, stabbing deep into the penguin's side and holding fast.

"Gotcha," Kama declared, and gave a casual tug on the chain that tightened Li's noose cruelly, forcing him to gasp for air.  Reflexively he clutched at the chain holding him prisoner, but this only prompted Kama to pull harder and Li could see a dark fog creeping into his vision.

He couldn't engage in a tug-of-war with the one holding the weapon; in this position he'd never win.  Before he could black out completely, Li's hands slid lightly up the chain and past his neck, turning as much as he could in spite of the corresponding pressure at his throat.  He could no longer breathe, it had to be now.  Closing his fists around the chain in preparation, he swung his right leg up in a straight-legged rising kick, knocking the little scythe right out of the penguin.  He whipped around in a sharp circle at the same time, gratefully gulping a lungful of air as the chain unwound from his neck but not letting go of it.  Instead he swung the kama right at Gun's temple, blunt end, and achieved a satisfying dull smack.  He dropped to the earth, unconscious.

Aghast, Kama pulled hard to reclaim his weapon, but Li neither let go nor dug his heels in to resist.  Instead he closed the distance between them in one light skipping motion and threw his right arm out, draping a length of the chain around Kama's head.  His attacker reacted too late and tried to untangle himself, but Li jerked both arms back and pulled his head forward and down.  There his knee met Kama's chin, and he too fell to the ground.

Head throbbing, Li took a moment to drag his sleeve across his forehead and mop up as much sweat as he could.  He ignored the tangled weapon at his feet and stepped slowly and carefully back out onto the sidewalk, eyeing the last of the three.  If bearing was anything to go by he was team leader, and there was nothing fearful about his expression as he watched Li approach.  If anything, his look was calculating.

"Not bad," he appraised.  "Not bad at all.  You really are a son of the Li clan."

"My sword," Li prompted tersely, and the response was only a shake of the head.  Then he too shed his jacket, and lovingly withdrew a slim silver dagger from its sheath on his hip.  Li exhaled in frustration and raked his bangs back from his face.

"What is this, a weapons expo?"

"We all have our pet favorites."

"And who's 'we'?"

"In due time."

Knife raised in a casual guard, he advanced.  Li backed up to where his umbrella had fallen and kicked it up from the ground, never dropping his gaze.  A cold breeze smelling of more rain blew, whisking his bangs off his sticky forehead, and Knife attacked.  Blade flashing like quicksilver in the meager light, he slashed and Li jabbed hard with the umbrella tip, forcing him back.  It was impossible to fight someone with a knife and not get cut, he remembered his teacher often lecturing.  The only defense was to keep them at bay; a knife was no good unless they were close enough to use it. 

Again Knife darted forward.  Li deflected the strike away from his body and kicked, pushing Knife clear and then thrusting the tip at his vulnerable throat.  Somehow Knife managed to bring his arm up and knock it to the side, though, and rotated into the motion with his dagger sweeping around to Li's face.  Li snapped his umbrella across his body and just managed to block the deadly attack, pushing up and out and quickly retreating.  He wasn't fast enough, though.  Knife managed to recover control and swiped again, just as Li backed out of range, and caught his left forearm.  Instantly a line of scarlet blossomed across the tear in his high school jacket, and the searing pain made him grit his teeth.

Impossible not to get cut.

Knife grunted in satisfaction and adjusted the grip on his dagger with a smirk.  "Ready to come quietly yet?"

"What do you want with me?"

"Secret."

He closed in on Li with several rapid slashes and Li backed up, desperately blocking and parrying.  His arm hurt to move and he could hear the rip every time the knife cut the material; his only defense was being reduced to ribbons.  The spine smacked against Knife's wrist and he jerked it down and to the right, hooking his wrist with the handle.  Before he could free himself, Li threw a vicious punch at his jaw that sent him stumbling backward.

Knife shook his head, blinking, and Li flexed his fingers with a wince.  The abrupt motion had not been kind to his wounded arm and now the blood was flowing faster.  Both hung back for a moment to recover, glaring silently at one another.

The tense silence was broken by an incongruous and perky beeping.  Li transferred the umbrella to his left hand and, without taking his eyes off the other, withdrew his phone from his jacket pocket.

"Yeah?" he panted.  "Oh, hi.  No, I'm fine."  He held the mouthpiece away so she wouldn't hear his ragged breathing.  "Strange feeling," he repeated neutrally, "might be something dangerous around?"

Around him the park was absolutely still, waiting.

"Sure, I'll keep an eye out.  Of course I'll be careful.  Uh-huh.  See you tomorrow.  Bye."

He pressed the End button, and caught his opponent smirking at the shell-pink phone with its dangling charm.

"Cute phone."

"My girlfriend's favorite color," Li said coolly, and slipped it back in his pocket.

"Can we get on with this?"

"Your move."

For the fourth time he attacked and Li retreated before the relentless assault, ignoring the furious pain in his arm as he deflected and blocked every strike.  Another breeze tossed the branches above him and loose sakura petals rained over them both, obscuring his vision.  He tripped and stumbled on a tree root, frantically swinging to parry Knife's next thrust and regain his balance at the same time.  In his brief distraction he acted without thinking, and too late he realized he'd followed the dagger too far out, into a trap.  A hand struck ruthlessly on his bleeding wound in the next second and Li's hand opened automatically, a reflex borne of pain.  The umbrella dropped to the ground and Li knew he was about to follow it.

With the tree trunk just behind him there was no more room to retreat, no way he could move to either side fast enough.  Trapped and watching the dagger reverse its path back to his face, he did the only thing he could think of and jabbed his elbow into Knife's stomach.  It was a sloppy counterattack, but one made strong from desperation and it was enough to make his opponent lean in, gasping for air.  Li grasped his right wrist and yanked hard, steering him directly into the cherry tree behind them, and slammed his forehead into the bark.  Not about to let go just yet, Li laced his arm around Knife's elbow and jerked on his wrist.  The resounding snap was followed by a startled yelp of pain, and before he could recover Li snatched his other wrist and twisted.  The knife fell neatly into his own hand and Li spun his attacker around to face him, bending his hand mercilessly into an unnatural position.  His arm ached but he kept up the pressure, readjusting his grip on the hilt.  It was an exquisite weapon, he noticed; the elegant silver hilt was studded with sapphires and glittered even in the thick dusk.

"Nice knife.  Wanna trade?"

He stabbed at the uninjured hand and Knife flinched, but Li had only driven the point through his sleeve and into the trunk.  With the other wrist broken it would be impossible to free himself, and he watched Li retrieve his sword amulet from his pocket, unable to do a thing about it.

"Damn," he wheezed, "you really are good.  Better than he thought, even."

"I'll ask one more time.  Who are you?  What do you want?"

"We represent an invitation, Li Syaoran.  The head of our organization has been watching you for some while now, he thinks you have real potential.  He'd like to recruit you."

"Not interested."

"It's a very elite organization, you understand, some of the finest assassins in Asia.  It's an honor to be asked to join, especially for a teenager like yourself."

"I said no thanks," Li snapped, and Knife shook his head.

"He doesn't like the answer no."

"Well then 'he' can come and ask me himself, and I'll break one of his bones too.  Tell him I said that."

With the fading adrenaline Li was becoming more aware of his injuries, both his head and his arm, and the general soreness in his muscles after such an unexpected workout.  He backed away.

"You sure you want to pass this up?  You'll be missing the chance to follow in your father's footsteps."

Li stiffened, took one look at Knife's smug and knowing smile, and smashed his fist into his face.  His head hit the trunk hard and then dropped to one side, and he sagged unconscious until the sleeve tore from his weight and he fell.  Li was already limping back to the sidewalk by then, and collapsed next to his bookbag with an exhausted groan.

His school shirt and jacket were ruined, no question.  Carefully he peeled off the latter and rolled up his bloodied shirt sleeve, then tugged off his tie to use as an impromptu tourniquet.

"I'm," he sighed, "not having a good day.  But I guess you'd know about that."

The penguin stared at him silently, its surface cracked and punctured, the ragged wounds easily visible even in the growing darkness.  The penguin always got the worst of it.

A drop landed on his nose; rain threatened and his shredded umbrella wasn't going to offer a lot of protection.  Wearily he stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder, almost stumbling again with the effort.

"Get ready," he advised the beleaguered slide.  "I think they'll be coming back."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Blue items:

-  sky

-  creek

-  umbrella

-  penguin slide

-  Seijou jacket

-  sapphires

So, yeah.  Nobody ever writes action scenes for the challenge, and now I know why.  Talk about too much work!  There's absolutely nothing in L's challenge that lends itself to this idea and, quite frankly, I got no idea where it came from.  But a muse is a muse, you know.  Besides, I just love Kick-Ass! Li, and we don't get to see him nearly often enough.

It may look like it, but I don't intend to continue this.  There's a vague idea for a full-length story lurking there somewhere, but I've got enough on my plate as it is.  As far as Li-centric scenes go, I'm more or less satisfied with this.  Never mentioned anyone's name but his, and the enemies are his and NOT Sakura's.  World doesn't revolve around her, after all.


	8. end of the affair

Topic: Defend Your OTP! (in 90 minutes or less)  
Genre: opposite of fluff.   
Canon: yes  
Rating: PG-13  
Length: 933 words  
Time: 70 minutes

Tease: Forever faithful.  Right? 

** 'end of the affair'**

_compassion_

Not just the empty words of sympathy, a stiff hug or somber stare.  She too knows the sharp pain of loss.  She knows the aching grief of someone you love ripped away forever, remembers how the ash scattering to the breeze takes a part of you with it. 

It was not supposed to end this way, we both cried out to the uncaring night sky.  We worked too hard, loved too much, gave too much of ourselves for it all to crash and die so horribly.  Sheets cold and flat when we reach for them in the middle of the night, frozen smiles looking out at us through picture frames, this is not what we deserved.

I can't cry.  I promised my wife I would not cry, and I don't break promises. 

Or do I?

I have been unfaithful.

_passion_

The words are so similar, but with an echoing canyon between their meanings.  And yet one did grow out of the other.  She was like me, drifting and alone, unable to stop loving someone that left her life forever.  She was quiet, kind-hearted, and loved the beautiful feminine things in life like my wife did.  We fit well; we exposed our hearts to one another and shared the grief.  We spoke of things we'd never told anyone else, the hurt that had been gathering since it happened.  I still kept my promise, but she hadn't made one and she wept into my shirt.  I remember how her slim body convulsed with the force of her sobs and I held her, crying dry tears into her hair. 

Were we really meant to be alone forever?

I know what anyone would say, if there was someone to ask.  She would want you to be happy… It's been so many years, time to move on… It isn't wrong…

Those were the words circling in my head as I lay her down on that hotel bed, her eyes full of trust and desire.  I'd never been with another besides my wife, and it wasn't the same.  But it was still good, the way she moved in my arms and caressed my skin with her lips.  She tasted sweet, like fluffy spun sugar, and her flesh was smooth under my touch.  I ran my fingers through her black hair; it was so soft and long and in the dark could almost be my wife's hair.  In that moment I loved her.

She murmured the same, against my chest, afterwards.

But you are not my wife.  I want you to be, I almost pretended you were, but you're not her.  I can't love you like I love her.  I am not your fiance, you do not love me the way you love him.  We can't live wishing the other was someone else.  I don't want to live like that.

I wrote the words as she slept, giving at least the explanation that she deserves.  And then I left, erasing us from each other's lives as quickly as we'd entered into them… a dropped book in the store, banged heads and an apology.  I walked away and it was over, our shared solace.  I will not lie and say it didn't hurt, but I knew it was the better way.  I'll keep loving my wife like I always have, and dying slowly for it, but at least I won't be the cause of someone else's pain.  I'm not that selfish. 

It's over.

- - - - - - - - - -

I felt almost free those next few weeks, in my new understanding, and any guilt that nagged I swept under my office rug.  But she would understand too, surely, I know she's wise enough to accept my words for what they were.  Would she cry, though?  Would she cry over me like she did for him?

I buried myself in an upcoming lecture, smothering any more stray thoughts on the matter.  In the process I almost managed to forget my own daughter's birthday, and it wasn't the first time I'd done so.  My son reminded me, of course, dropping the innocuous comment with a knowing black look that said how well he knew the reminder was needed.  My son inherited his eyes from his great-grandfather, though he'll never know it, and in him I see the same calculating intelligence.  Does he know, what I've been doing over the past year when I scribble on the board that I'm off to the college?  Paranoia made me wonder, but it doesn't matter anymore.  It's over.

I took my daughter shopping that Sunday afternoon, bought her anything she wanted.  After an afternoon in Tokyo's malls, she pleaded a quick stopover on the way home.  There was this adorable picture frame she'd been eyeing… it would look so cute with her new family photo in it.  Glassy green eyes and her excited, hopeful smile are weapons that I can't resist, so I pull over and park not too far from home.  It's a charming little store, one that she's been coming to often since it opened almost two years earlier.  Or so she jabbers at me as she pulls my wrist and tows me inside.  And she's great friends with the owner, such a kind and pretty lady, and her name is –

"Maki-san!"

The word explodes in my ears.  Like an animal drawn to the approaching car I look numbly past my waving daughter to the owner, standing up and turning away from her big pile of stuffed animals, long and soft black hair swishing with the movement. 

Her eyes meet mine.

And I know it's not over at all.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Whew, did anyone see it?  When did you figure it out?  How's that for thinking outside the box, L-chan?  This is the second time in a row I've flouted one of your challenge rules, and I feel really bad about it.  As usual, I didn't double check the parameters before I started writing, so I didn't realize fluff was mandatory.  At least I did get it written in 70 minutes.

In retrospect, when watching the Jump Card episode, this coupling seems so obvious.  Especially when you consider that the Illusion Card episode comes right after it, but I'm sure that this time I've come up with something never before done.  I wonder if even Clamp considered the possibilities.  Maki may be a little younger (like Nadeshiko wasn't?) but she lost her fiance, and she makes me think of Nadeshiko in a lot of ways.  The long hair, a love for the cute and fluffy things in life, and Sakura already likes her.  It could definitely work, and I like it better than Sonomi. 

But how would Sakura and Touya react to a new woman in Dad's life – especially Touya with his old Oedipus complex?  I really don't know, but I'm glad I finally got the chance to get this on paper (screen).  It's been nagging at me for almost 2 years.


	9. guys will be guys

**Topic:** Strange Bedfellows  
**Genre:** Action/Humor  
**Canon:** post-anime  
**Rating:** PG  
**Length:** 2,700  
**Special Requirements:** One day, a CCS character of your choice wakes up next to . Fill in the blank with anyone you want, but this person can not be an original character or from CCS. Yes, that means this is a crossover challenge.  
**Tease:  **Li wakes up next to a strange… guy?

**'a guy thing'**

Pain.  And a lot of it, too, throbbing in every muscle as he tried another shallow breath.  Li stirred slightly and the response was a cruel spasm along his back.  He made a half-hearted attempt to open his eyes, but when that provoked another wave of hurt he gave it a miss.  Easier just to go back to sleep.

But why did he hurt so much?  The question pestered him out of slipping into the black void again, and even though it required effort he thought back.  The crackle of repeated attacks, billowing clouds of acrid smoke, shouts, her scream…

Sakura!

A burst of panic pushed him into opening his eyes, and he was promptly blinded by bright afternoon sunlight.  Distantly he could hear the sound of Tokyo traffic, and the somewhat louder twitter of birds.  A park?  Again, a little more carefully, he opened them and saw the reassuring green leaves of early summer overhead.  A warm and gentle breeze played with them, and Li mustered the energy to lift his head.  No Sakura, but he did find a teenage boy lying on the grass next to him.  He too breathed shallowly, in the stillness of lost consciousness, shadows of new bruises beginning to show across his body.  Li could see them on his arms, and his chest where his shirt had been ripped.

Confused, he looked down to see that his own body was in a similar state.  It explained the pain, at least, if not what happened in the first place.  Who was the guy?  He looked a couple years older than Li and the Chinese boy couldn't think of where they would have ever met.  And yet, oddly, he did seem familiar.

"Oh, you're finally up?"  Li's head snapped up at the sound of Sakura's voice and he winced at the sudden movement.  She and another teenage girl were walking toward them, licking at ice cream cones, a bright blue stuffed animal riding implausibly on the stranger's shoulder.  Sakura did not seem hurt, or afraid, or even too concerned, but he pushed himself upright anyway.

"Sakura?  Daijobu desu ka?"

She raised her eyebrows.  "You're asking me if I'm all right?  I'm fine.  Humiliated more than words can express, but fine.  How do you feel?"

"Horrible.  What happened?"

"You mean you don't even remember?"  She shook her head in disgust as both girls settled themselves on the grass before them.  Li was starting to feel more and more uneasy.

"Remember what?"

"Almost killing yourself, and Yusuke-kun too."

"Who?" 

Sakura nodded to the boy on Li's left.  "Your new best friend.  And this is Keiko-san.  She says this happens all the time." 

The girl with Sakura nodded.  "This happens all the time.  You were a lot tougher than most, though.  I think you took Yusuke by surprise."

At the sound of his name, the boy stirred and muttered something, and Keiko prodded him unkindly with a foot.

"Yusuke, wake up."

"Tell Kuwabara he can be the team leader," Yusuke mumbled, and Keiko kicked him harder.  The stuffed animal – or not – flapped its long ears and flew from Keiko's shoulder to land on Yusuke's chest, and nuzzled him lovingly.

"Puu?" it trilled.

"Get off, Puu," Yusuke snapped, and knocked away the little creature with an impatient swipe.  "Keiko?"

"Congratulations, Yusuke, you held out for almost a week without picking a fight with a complete random stranger.  I was starting to worry about you."

Bleary black eyes moved from his scowling friend to Sakura to Li.  "What happened?"

"You mean neither of you remember?" Keiko and Sakura chorused, disbelieving.  Li and Yusuke exchanged a puzzled glance and shrugged.

"Let me jog your memory," Sakura sighed, looking exasperated.  She caught a trail of running strawberry ice cream before it could drip, then licked her lips.  "It all started when you heard about the Bruce Lee movie thing."

"The Collector's Edition Bruce Lee Box Set, Limited Edition?" both he and Yusuke recited at the same time.

"With training partners' commentary!"

"And his old interviews!"

"Yes," Keiko answered tersely, "that.  Anyway, you heard that martial arts movie specialty shop was receiving a shipment today, so you dragged me along to come and get it."

"As did you," Sakura reminded Li.

Fuzzy details were beginning to resolve in Li's mind, and he nodded.  The Raging Dragon, the shop was called, with a sign dangling during open hours that said 'enter the dragon.'  The bell had chimed softly when he pulled Sakura inside.  Vaguely he remembered another boy towing his protesting girlfriend into the shop not far behind them.

"Bruce Lee?" they had both demanded of the clerk, who quickly pointed to a display table in the corner.  Except –

"There was only one left," Sakura continued.  "I've never seen you move so fast, I don't think even the Dash Card could have kept up."

"You both pounced on it at the same time."  The thrill of victory, he remembered, of laying his hand on the gold box.  Then he realized the other boy had his hand on it too.  Instinctively they tensed and glared at one another. 

"I got here first," Yusuke snarled.

"No you didn't.  I did."

"I did!"

"I did!"

The precious box moved back and forth between them as they tugged.  Li could feel the other boy's muscles tensing in readiness, and a look of understanding passed between them. 

"So when you couldn't 'outwit' each other verbally -"

Simultaneously, they used their free arms to sweep anything still on the table out of their way, then clasped their hands.  Empty plastic display stands clattered to the floor, provoking a cry of protest from the clerk, but already they were absorbed in the arm wrestling contest.

- - - - - - -

"Puu," that little animal chimed in, and waddled back over to Keiko.  It looked hopeful, and she fed it the last of her ice cream cone. 

"Both of you were starting to sweat after a few minutes, and looking a little red."

"We'd just finished apologizing to the clerk, and promising to clean up the mess, when we heard a crash."

Oh yeah.  Now it was all coming back, and he could see by the look in Yusuke's eyes that it was the same for him.  At some point they both realized that arm wrestling wasn't going to get them anywhere, and it was Yusuke that escalated things by curling over his wrist and bringing him to the floor.  Not to be outdone, Li flipped his legs back and locked his ankles around Yusuke's neck, yanking him right over and slamming him into the ground.  Neither of them were actually holding onto the coveted box at this point, but that had ceased to matter. 

Snarling, Li threw himself at the other and almost cinched it with the inescapable chokehold.  But Yusuke managed to curl his body in time and flipped Li over his shoulder, and something else toppled over with a crash.  Distantly he heard two female shrieks before Li twisted and threw Yusuke right into the glass doors.  Luckily – or not – Yusuke snagged Li's sleeves and dragged him along, slowing their momentum.  Both fell through the doors without smashing any glass, and tumbled to a heap at the bottom of the concrete steps.

Again he heard Sakura call his name pleadingly, but her voice was thin and quickly lost in pounding cry for battle.  They'd parted but briefly, and this time Li attacked with a merciless side kick aimed right for his solar plexus.  Somehow Yusuke evaded it and knocked his leg to one side, then struck with a hard punch at his jaw.  Li turned his head in time so that it was only glancing, but even so it almost knocked him flat.

_("Good hit," he mumbled grudgingly, and Yusuke nodded.  "Thanks.")_

Head ringing a little, Li retreated and studied his opponent more carefully.  That blow hinted there was even more strength to this one than the fight had begun to tap, and without realizing it he licked his lips in anticipation.  This time both of them attacked in a blur of kicks and punches – Li had never faced a human that could move so fast.  Across the parking lot they battled furiously, unable to connect fist or foot to target.  The midday summer sun was hot and he could feel the sweat trickling down his face, dampening his bangs.  Yusuke spun, his right heel swinging in a circle right for Li's temple, and he dropped out of range.  Automatically he twisted as he fell and swept his right leg against Yusuke's ankles, and the older boy hit the parking lot hard on his back. 

Yes!  Triumphant, Li jumped to his feet faster than Yusuke could sit up and brought his foot down in a devastating axe kick.  He'd never be able to block it effectively and it could end the fight.  In meager defense Yusuke raised his hand to catch his heel, and then some kind of force exploded.  Taken by surprise, Li was thrown right back and off his feet.  An unforgiving car roof rushed to catch him, and he summoned a wind ward to cushion his fall.

The familiar breeze circled him and set him down gently on top of the sedan, light as a feather, and he was able to catch his breath at last.  Yusuke was staring at him from the ground, shocked, and both boys realized – not unhappily – that this unexpected fight was about to become a lot more exciting.

Yusuke clenched his hand and threw his arm at Li, who leapt back just in time to avoid the bolt of glittering power.  He activated his sword and jumped again when Yusuke attacked, falling back, retreating before the relentless assault and dodging every shot.

- - - - - - -

"You were moving too fast to even see," Sakura complained, who had joined Keiko in stroking Puu absentmindedly.  It closed its eyes, cooing with pleasure, but otherwise made no noise.  It was a big improvement over Sakura's loudmouthed 'stuffed animal', Li thought, and wondered if he could convince Yusuke to switch.  "We could only see the flashes of light and clouds of smoke every time you hit something, and then you both moved out of the parking lot and up the hill, into the park."

"It was easy to follow you," Keiko added wryly, gesturing with her free hand.  Both boys followed with their eyes and could see what she meant: patches of grass had been burned brown and a few splintered limbs had been snapped from the trees.  "Sakura-san worried about people calling the police, so she put everyone to sleep with some sort of magic she has.  She was hoping it would work on you too, but apparently testosterone is an antibody.  Either that or stupidity."

- - - - - - -

Li felt the crackling near-miss of another shot, all the hair on his skin rising, and finally threw an attack of his own.

"Lightning!"  Electric fire streaked out to meet Yusuke's bolt dead-on, and both exploded in a dazzling white light that had them blinking.  Li fired again, and again, then attacked with a wind gust that shoved Yusuke right off his feet.  He skidded backward across the grass until he slammed into a tree trunk, and shook his head to clear it. 

"So that's how you want to play?"  Yusuke pointed his finger at him, and Li gripped his sword in readiness.  "Spirit gun!"

He fired, and it was like a hundred fireworks had all just been shot right at Li.  Light and power was everywhere, and it was impossible to dodge such a thing.  Without taking the time to think about it Li charged directly into it, sword raised in attack.  With wind he cleaved the very air before him, directing it to flow around him and take Yusuke's lethal strike with it.  His opponent barely had time to realize this and dart to the side before Li was on him, and his swordtip stabbed at the bark instead.

- - - - - - - -

"Smooth move," Yusuke praised, and Li shrugged bashfully. 

"Did what I had to do."

"How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Hey, not bad.  Where did you train?"

"My family taught me, Hong Kong.  You?"

"I'm Genkai's student."

Li's mouth fell open.  "Genkai the demon-killer?  The Genkai?"

"Yep."

Li's heart warmed at the thought; he'd been fighting against the best today.  He quickly smothered the smile when he caught Sakura's annoyed glare.

"So, once you'd finished obliterating the park and nearly killing everyone around you, you decided to end it once and for all."

- - - - - - - - - -

Li thrust forward, stopping the attack just short of Yusuke's pointing finger.  Both froze, panting for breath amidst the wisps of acrid smoke. 

"I'll shoot."

"So will I."

"You think I'm scared?"

"You think I am?"

"This'll finish it."

"I know."

Trouble was, neither of them could be sure which way it would finish things.  Never mind, Li could already sense Yusuke's power swelling, readying itself for a final attack.  Determined not to lose, Li poured every last scrap of his remaining energy into a lightning blast.

Both attacked.

The last thing he could remember was a flare of white and crackling heat. 

- - - - - - - -

"And you blew each other halfway across the park," Sakura summed up.  "You were out for almost half an hour."

Half an hour?  Li grimaced and put a hand to his throbbing head.  That must have been one hell of a blast to knock him out for so long.  No wonder he hurt.

"This is why I can't take you anywhere!" Keiko was complaining bitterly, and she swatted the back of Yusuke's head.

"Ouch!"

"I've never been so embarrassed in my life, Syaoran.  What were you thinking?  Oh, that's right, you weren't thinking.  You were being a _guy_.  What do you have to say?"

Both girls glared icicles, and Li and Yusuke exchanged a quick glance.

"What about the Bruce Lee set?" they asked simultaneously.  Keiko let out a strangled cry, and Sakura looked as though she wanted to bang her head against the nearest tree.

"That's what I was trying to tell you, when you threw each other out of the store!  The clerk had another boxful in the back, he just hadn't opened it yet."

Both Li and Yusuke perked up, and straightened.  "Really?"

"Yes, really.  But now you're both banned from the store forever.  He's already filled out the restraining order paperwork."

"Oh."  Their shoulders slumped again, then Yusuke looked hopefully at his girlfriend.

"Well, maybe you could…"  He cringed when he saw the look on her face.  "Maybe not."

"Why you're so obsessed with watching movies about action and violence, I'll never understand," Sakura despaired.  "Seems like you've got plenty of it in your own life.  Now get up, Syaoran, it's time for us to go home."  She turned to the other girl and instantly had the smile back on her face.  "It's been really nice meeting you, Keiko-san.  Maybe next time we come downtown, we can get lunch?"

"Sure, I'd like that."

Yusuke and Li watched the girls exchange phone numbers.

"We're in trouble.  Aren't we?"

Yusuke groaned softly and nodded.  "I know Keiko.  We'll be shoe shopping for the rest of the day.  You?"

"Probably a costume fitting with her best friend.  Or dinner with her brother."  He swallowed, and Yusuke sighed.

"Ah well, it was worth it."

"Yusuke."

"Coming."  Wincing visibly, he pushed himself to a standing position and then held out a hand for Li.  Squeezing Puu between her arms, Keiko marched a couple steps before turning to wait for her recalcitrant boyfriend.  He'd turned away and then stopped, looking as if he just thought of something.  "Oh, what was your name again?"

"Li.  Li Syaoran."

"My friends and I get caught up in some dicey tournaments sometimes, usually with a lot of harsh combat and sorcery.  Can I call you if we ever need a fifth guy?"

Li nodded thoughtfully and allowed a small smile.  "Sure.  I'd like that."

"Yusuke!"

"Coming!  See you."  He extended his fist; not sure what was expected, Li copied him.  Yusuke bopped them lightly together, and with another flash of his cocky grin turned to follow his girlfriend.

"See you."  Li was still smiling when his eyes met Sakura's again.  Probably a costume fitting with Tomoyo AND dinner with her brother, if he read her glare right.

Never mind.  It was worth it.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Oh my gosh, another action piece for the challenge!  That's twice in a row; apparently my action muse (his name is Hiei) doesn't know he should be working on Wildflower.  But I've never had the chance to do humor/action before and it was really fun, and it's not as hard to write as serious/action.  Plus I couldn't resist the idea, since Tam never said the characters had to be in a bed.  Haha! 

I tried to make this enjoyable even if you don't know Yu Yu Hakusho, but I don't know if I succeeded in that.  If you don't know it, I highly recommend it.  It's a great show with fabulous characters and fight scenes, and a refreshing alternative if you ever get sick of Sakura's wimpy attitude about fighting.  This challenge couldn't have come at a more perfect time, since my friend sent me 3 YYH dvds in a care package to watch last week.  Best 5 hours I've had in months.


	10. scent of seduction

Topic: The Art of Flowers  
Genre: Romance, kinda.  
Canon: Yes!  
Rating: PG-13, but skating on the edge of R.  You have been warned.  
Length: around 1200 words  
Special Requirements: You must have a plot centering around flowers, and not just the giving of, but maybe like the special meanings of certain flowers (flower colors) or something a bit more creative than someone just giving someone a bunch of them. You have to include a scene between your favorite and least favorite character.

Tease:  I don't really have a least favorite character, but when I take whom I consider to be the most boring character and multiply that by excessive screen time in the series, I get Tomoyo.  And everyone knows who my favorite character is.  So put two and two together and that means… holy alternate couplings, L-chan!

**'the scent of seduction'**

The only sound in the room is the soft whisper of her hands moving over my skin, stroking and rubbing with her usual meticulous care.  I can't see her, but the tickle of hair falling against me and a creak in the mattress says she's leaning over me to gain better access.  The gentle caresses move up between my shoulder blades, and when she presses a particular muscle I moan out loud.

A sweet scent is starting to make itself known to me, one that seems familiar but I can't place right away.  I close my eyes and inhale.

"What is it this time?"

"Lavender, mostly.  Diluted in almond oil with a dropperful of geranium and jasmine for variety.  Do you like it?"

"I love it."

She says that pure oils from plants aren't oily or greasy at all, and she's right.  She shakes a few more droplets from the small and unmarked glass jar into her hands, then turns her attention to my shoulders and biceps.  Her hands glide over me like soft silk and the oil melts into my skin with no residue.  Not bad, for a hobby she's only been pursuing for a couple months. 

"That's good.  I think this is my favorite yet, I must have added just the right amount of everything.  Lavender is best for relaxation, and the geranium is meant to drain away tension."

"You want me to fall asleep on you?" I mumble into the pillow, feeling dangerously comfortable here.  With her it's always too comfortable. 

She giggles.  "Didn't you guess that was the plan?"

"Funny."  I roll over and glare at her.  "Why don't you ever mix up something for passion?  Or lust?  Excitement?"

"Maybe because I think you're plenty," she answers, lilt in her voice.  "Besides those are herbals, and fruit scents.  I like the florals, I'm more comfortable with them."  She moves to screw the lid back onto the jar and I place a hand over hers. 

"No.  My chest too."

Her eyes meet mine, and she nods.  "As you wish." 

Obediently her creamy hands rub lightly over my ribs, and I close my eyes with another low moan.  Calming and soothing intentions notwithstanding, I can feel my body stirring itself for more action.  Maybe she's right, I don't need any help.  It might have been nice to try, though.

"Why do you like florals so much, then?"

"Just like I said; the flower scents are soothing.  They represent tranquility and peace, which is usually what people are looking for when they come to me."

Oh how right she is, though I wonder if she ever gets tired of her role as the wet shoulder.  We've all gone to her, at one time or another, I'm sure even Yuki has.  Does she actually look him in the eye, when he tells her about our problems, nod sympathetically?  She's good, probably better than any of us'll ever guess. 

"Lavender will always be my favorite.  It's a healer, it calms tension and anxiety."

I wanted to be healed too.  I confided in her, divulged secret personal things that I wouldn't dream of mentioning to anyone else.  She was so soft, when I leaned on her for comfort, her very scent subdued my turbulent emotions.  Must have been wearing lavender that day.  And I was kissing her before I knew it, my hands roaming over her body before my mind realized it. 

"There's a lot of good scents for tension, luckily.  There's geranium too, like I said, and roses.  Neroli – the orange blossom – and ylang-ylang."

I found a release from tension in her, in the privacy of the park that day.  With her it's different – and not just in the obvious physical way.  Still several months shy of her nineteenth birthday, she's inexperienced and breathlessly submissive under my touch.  It's not as passionate, not so frenzied, but I'm unquestionably on top and it would be stupid to lie and say I don't like it.

"Most of those also work on anger too.  Plus juniper, I really do like juniper.  Its flower has a much stronger scent than most." 

Anger, seems to be a lot of that in my life lately.  I don't know how it began, but the little things just started adding up.  Friction, where there hadn't been any before.  It has to do with their blending personalities, I know it, he's not just the simple-hearted boy that I fell in love with anymore.  He's stronger than me by far, starting to enjoy wrestling me into the sheets and the way I still fight for dominance.  I told myself that we still had the same passion, that it was all right, but I knew that wasn't quite true.  He's stronger than me because I gave that to him, more powerful thanks to me. 

I'm a selfish jerk for getting resentful about it, or so I told her.  She said I'm just used to being in control.

And then she proved me right.

"How's this?"  Her hands move up over my chest, rubbing in small concentric circles, and my blood turns hot under her touch.  Her fingertips avoid my nipple, but then I place my hand over hers and guide her to it, rubbing it gently.  I moan again and hear her suck her breath in, though just barely.  She's always the quiet one, even in the throes of our lovemaking she bites her lip to keep silent.  Everyone else's confidant, is she so afraid to let her own feelings show?

I don't know how she feels about me.  Even after weeks of clandestine meetings in hotel rooms and so many new combinations of homemade massage oil, I don't have a clue.  Does she love me?  I don't even know if I love her.  I only know how good it is, and I don't want to give it up.

"What about the jasmine?"

"Hmm?"  She looks up from her task, but neither of our hands stop moving. 

"You said there was jasmine in it this time, but you didn't say what it was for."

"Jasmine is good for a lot of things, but it's rather expensive.  This is my first time to use it.  It's supposed to work on anger too, and tension, and emotional fatigue.  It's also meant to help with indecision."

She says the words evenly, without a trace of significance in her tone.  She's never pressed me to make a choice, never been less than endlessly patient as I unleash my needs and dominate her again and again.  What does she want?  Beyond guiding her hand to another part of my body, I don't even know what I want.  It's always something to think about later.

When it's over, I'll get in the impersonal motel shower and scrub away all traces of lavender and geranium and jasmine, wash away the evidence.  Then I'll dress and return to the apartment I share with my lover, and tonight we will either fight or have passionate sex.  Maybe both.  And next week I'll meet her for another soothing massage. 

"How's this?"

"Perfect."

Maybe I'll tell her to bring oil for passion.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Always knew that aromatherapy class would come in handy.  Though it would have been better if I was the one rubbing down unclothed Touya, and not little Miss Laura Ashley.  When I did the math and realized what this story was going to be about, I discovered that I still didn't have the heart to break up Touya and Yuki.  So I made Touya cheat on him instead.  Do I have warped principles, or what?


	11. match met

Topic: Missing  
Genre: Action.  Again.  
Canon: By definition, no.  
Rating: PG  
Length: 1600.  I lobby that any action scene will always push the wordcap and should thus be exempt.  
Special Requirements: Rewrite any part of the canon, minus one main character.  The story should assume that the person picked had never existed.  
Tease:  As an action writer, I naturally weed out the one character that thwarts all the good potential fight scenes in CCS.  Yeah, you know who I'm talking about.  (Stop! –whine- I don't want to fight you! –whimper-)

**'match met'**

Spring was an actual season here.  Warm but not too warm, the afternoon sun shone down on the school cheerfully and a breeze tickled the young green leaves.  Students gathered in knots and jabbered, not ready to go home while the weather was so pleasant.  It was peaceful, it was tranquil.

It was an illusion.

Li darted back and circled his opponent warily, aware that his breathing had gotten louder and a line of sweat had formed under his bangs.  She, on the other hand, was hardly breathing at all, and her expressionless face didn't twitch as she attacked again with unhurried grace.  Unhurried did not mean slow, however, and Li slid away from the lethal point with molecules to spare, bracing his own sword against the blade and pushing. 

An opening!  He swept his blade in but somehow she managed to move back in time and twisted out of his path.  He barely managed to leap clear before she reversed the motion of her sword and sliced at his chest. 

The tie on his sailor suit uniform fell away; that was close.  Shakily he exhaled and raised his sword again in attack posture.

"C'mon," Kero complained loudly, stuffing his face with potato chips on a nearby tree branch, "what's taking so long?"

"Stuff it, plushie," Li growled, never taking his eyes off the girl for a moment.  "I'd sure like to see you handle a sword."

"I -"

"And no, Mortal Kombat II does not count."

She threw a quick feint, and Kero hmphed.  "Well, move it along.  We're gonna miss Gundam Wing!"

"Perish the thought," Li muttered, and then she attacked for real.  It was so fast he almost didn't block it in time, and desperately he parried the strike away from his body.  She advanced, her thin blade stabbing and slicing the air with meticulous accuracy.  She was just so damn fast, and Li couldn't read her intentions as he'd been trained to do in sword combat.  She had none.  Over and over again she jabbed at Li and he retreated, all his energy channeled to defense.

"She's kickin' your ass," Kero drawled.

"Shut up."

Swords flashing in the dappled sunlight, Li parried her attack and thrust forward.  She was forced to block and for the first time almost stumbled in her haste.  Eagerly Li pressed forward and attacked twice in a flash of aggression.  Metal blade clanged against metal blade in rapid staccato rhythm and then they parted again.  Li was panting now, and he dragged a sleeve across his brow to mop up extra sweat.  He wondered if the Card's host was tiring too, or if she could even feel her own fatigue. 

"Careful," Kero was lecturing from behind him.  "You want to disarm the kid, not hurt her!  It's not her fault she was possessed."

"I know," Li snapped irritably.  "I am being careful, damn it.  But this is the Sword Card itself that I'm fighting.  It's not easy!"

"Maybe you could distract her somehow?  You know anything about her?"

The host seemed to have gathered herself for another round.  Eyes still chillingly blank, she advanced upon Li and he raised his sword in readiness.  He knew the face quite well, she sat in the desk next to his in class and he'd seen her every school day since he'd moved to Japan. 

"It's, um, Dai-something.  Can't remember."

"You don't even know your own classmate's name?" Kero wailed, and Li met the attack with a crescent block. 

"It's not my fault she never talks.  I think she's scared of me."

"Gee, can't imagine why."

"Could you do me a favor and shut up?"

The thin sword slashed downward in a high strike and Li blocked it near the hilt, just short of a fatal connection with his skull.  He pushed it away in an arcing motion with his sword, with an automatic impulse to reverse the motion and slice at her throat.  But no, he couldn't end the fight in such a manner.  While he hesitated she attacked again, sweeping the blade right at his neck.  He was in no position to block it and instinctively he dropped to the earth, underneath the fatal strike.  Years of training directed his muscles before his mind could, and he used his momentum to spin on one knee and sweep his leg across her ankles.  She squeaked and hit the grass flat on her back, and the sword flew out of her grasp.

Angry, the disenfranchised spirit tried to return to her hand but Li threw himself over her body.

"I won't let you," he panted, sword pointed threateningly, and the Card wavered.

"Now!" Kero cried.

"I know that," Li answered tersely, and yanked the key off from around his neck.  He broke the cord every time; it couldn't be helped.

"Key that hides the power of the Dark, show your true form before me.  I, Li Syaoran, command you under our contract!  Release!" 

The tiny key lengthened into a staff, and with sword still in his right hand he struck at the Card with his left.  "Return to the guise you were meant to be in.  Clow Card!"

The willful magic resisted only a moment longer before finally conceding his victory.  It dissolved, and reformed as the Card under his staff's beak.  Exhausted and relieved, he sat back on the grass next to the unconscious girl and tried to reclaim his breath.

"About time," Kero yawned, and Li scowled. 

"For your information, I could have won any time I wanted."

"Sure."

"I had to do it without hurting her."

"Uh-huh."

"Watch it, you loud-mouthed excuse for a guardian!"  Li brandished his sword at the hovering creature.  "If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have anyone at all to gather up the Cards, which you lost when you were taking a thirty year nap!"

"I told you it was just forty winks!" Kero flared indignantly.  "And it is most definitely not my fault that some lady had enough magic to open the clasp -"

"Which you should have been guarding -"

"- and then collapsed when the Cards scattered -"

"- which you also should have been guarding -"

"- leaving me without anyone to designate the Cardcaptor!"

"Anyone?  What about me?" 

Kero waved a negligent paw.  "You're all right, in a pinch."

Li snarled, but cut off his prepared retort at the sound of a soft moan.  The Card's host was waking up.

"She's coming to," Kero hissed, stating the obvious.  "Sword!"

"Doll!" Li hissed right back, and smirked when Kero scowled.  Then he obediently dropped to the dirt, still.  Li's sword and the sealing staff retracted to their tiny forms, and he stuffed the Card into his pocket to join its nine siblings.  Whatever the plushie might say, it wasn't too bad for six weeks. 

"Mm?"  Her eyes fluttered open, and she blinked owlishly at Li.  Eyes looked normal, that was a good sign.  Again he tried to remember her name, but could only get as far as Dai-something.  "Wha… Li-kun?"

"Yeah.  How do you feel?"

"Dizzy."  She put a hand to her head and grimaced, then tried to sit up.  She couldn't quite make it, but Li made no move to help prop her up.  "What happened?"

"You fainted.  I saw you go down just outside the school."  His classmate blinked again and took in the trees around them, and the schoolyard's brick wall not far away.

"Oh my…"

"Gone shopping lately, brought anything new into your house?"

"Er, I went shopping on the weekend with my friends."  She looked even more confused at the incongruous question, but Li wasn't about to explain.  "We bought some jewelry; I got a pin.  I decided to wear it today -"  She patted her uniform collar, looking puzzled.  "Oh, it's gone.  I must have lost it when I fainted."  She pushed herself upright and scanned the grass around them, not that she was going to find it.

But he wasn't going to tell her that.

"Good luck," he muttered, and stood up.  Her face looked so white still, and as an afterthought he patted his pockets.  "Here."  A square of foil-wrapped chocolate landed in her skirt's folds, and she glanced up in surprise.  "Eat that.  It helps."

"Er, thank you.  Li-kun?"  He'd turned away, but stiffened at the shift in her tone.

"Yeah?"

"Is this your stuffed animal?"

Drat.  He'd almost forgotten again, and wearily he turned around.  Oddly, she wasn't holding Kero by a careless leg or wing, but cradling him gently in her outstretched hands.  There was something very tender about her touch, almost as if she knew.

Before Kero could get too spoiled, he whisked him out of her hands, letting him dangle by one foot.  He'd get bit later, but it was worth it.

"Yeah, thanks.  Present for my- my cousin.  She might be coming to Japan soon."

"Oh, how nice.  You must be sure and introduce me to her when she arrives.  I always wanted a sister or a girl cousin my own age, but I only have Touya-kun." 

Reflexively Li clenched his fists, surprised at the sudden flare of hostility.  He'd never heard the name before, but something about it –

A sharp pain in his hand brought him back, and with a yelp he released Kero.  Stupid stuffed animal.

"Li-kun?"  Uncertainly her eyes moved from him to the inert plushie on the ground, whom she just might have seen waft easily to earth rather than falling.

"Cramp.  Gotta go."  It was the most he ever said of a goodbye, when the people of this town woke up dizzy and confused to find him standing by.  Angrily he swept Kero off the grass and strode away.

"I loathe you."

"Right back at you, buddy."

Ten down, forty-two to go.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Everybody else was doing angst, so I thought I'd go for something a little more light-hearted.  This swordfight is tame compared to my others, but considering the circumstances I guess it can't be helped.  Li might have been a little rough around the edges in the beginning, but he's still not going to kill a girl just to get a Card.  It's always been my opinion that if Sakura wasn't there, Li would have made a damn decent Master of the Cards – he certainly worked hard enough for it.  But without Tomoyo and Sakura to play peacemaker, you can imagine how antagonistic things would be between Li and Kero.

I tarried for a while on the question of what would happen to the Cards if Sakura never existed.  Would Touya make the better Captor, or Li?  I still think Touya would be good, but I went with Li here so I could write a swordfight.  But how would he come to have the key?

After some thinking, I decided that the book made its way to the Kinomoto household just as it was supposed to.  But Nadeshiko suffered an early miscarriage and thus Sakura was never born, leaving Touya an only child.  Going on the flimsy premise that the pregnancy and labor of her second child wouldn't drain her strength, Nadeshiko did not succumb to the disease that would have killed her a few years later.  So if Nadeshiko never died, maybe she and Sonomi kept contact and Tomoyo and Touya would know they're cousins – though not necessarily close ones.  Nadeshiko had enough magic to hear Kero snoring and open the clasp of the book, but collapsed under the sheer torrent of energy when all the Cards escaped.  Seeing her out for the count, Kero would realize she wasn't suited for the purpose of recapturing the Cards and thus took both book and key with him to find someone that was.

And then Li showed up from Hong Kong.  They might dislike each other on sight, but Li is still Kero's best chance at reclaiming the Cards.  And although Yuki and Touya do still exist, without Sakura around their paths would not have yet crossed.  Only a matter of time, though.  And no matter what universe they're in, as I've always theorized, Li and Touya will despise each other.  

Li: This is the third time you've featured me in an action fight for your challenge, Peacewish.  I think Sakura's starting to suspect us.

Me: She'll have a lot more reason to by the time I'm through with you, my cute Little Wolf.  (pinches his cheek)  Don't tell her, and I won't tell Touya.  Deal?

Li:  You're hurting my face.

Me:  Good.


	12. pigtails

Topic: Introductions  
Genre: Fluffy romance.  Seems I'm capable of it after all.  
Canon: Yes  
Rating: G  
Length: 1,135 words  
Requirements: Show two (or more) characters meeting for the first time. Time taken: 75 minutes to the dot

Tease: One lie might not have been a lie at all. 

**'pigtails'**

Kindergarten.

Forever she had waited for this, squirming with impatience and crossing the winter days off the calendar, watching with bright brown eyes from her window as the older schoolgirls giggled their way home.  It would be so much fun, she was sure; once she'd become a part of the hallowed kindergarten she too could have girlfriends that held hands and laughed themselves sick.  And now on the first day, cheeks pink with delight and pigtails bobbing, Chiharu's chance had come. 

Her tablemates were very nice.  Naoko-chan liked to read a fairy tale under the desk when their teacher wasn't looking, and Tomoyo-chan and Rika-chan were both rather quiet, but Chiharu didn't mind.  She knew they'd all be great friends.  They played fun games and sang songs; Chiharu knew kindergarten was going to be wonderful.

Except for one thing.

"…and did you know that scissors used to be as big as this classroom?  Great big men had to hold each end and then push them toward each other, and they used them to cut down trees in the countryside!"

"That's very nice, Yamazaki-kun," their teacher said again, her patient smile starting to slip.  "But if you could please just pass out the scissors -"

"Of course, rusting was a problem when it rained.  They had to build great sheds just to keep them dry -"

"Yamazaki-kun!"

Chiharu didn't like boys.  And this one was so very annoying, the way he never stopped talking, the way he laughed so loudly, and the way her classmates stared open-mouthed, swallowing his ridiculous stories like foolish guppies.  He told a story about the history of chalk when their teacher wrote on the board, about the scissors in arts and crafts, and even why tables had once been built with their legs pointing up. 

At recess another crowd had gathered around him as he swung by his knees from the gymnastics bars. 

"…they would do this for days at a time, to prove themselves to the king.  But the bars were arranged over alligator ponds at the time, so it was very scary."

A murmur of awe went up from the entranced five year-olds.  Chiharu crossed her arms and scowled.

"Does he always talk so much?  He's just doing it to get attention."

"I think it's very interesting!" Naoko-chan pipped.  "Except giant water serpents would be even better…"

"- but sometimes the men even fell asleep hanging upside down!"

Chiharu huffed and stamped her foot.  Perhaps Tomoyo-chan or Rika-chan would like to play hopscotch then.  She flounced away from the small crowd and promptly smacked into someone. 

"Hey!  Watch it!"  A pair of hands pushed her and she stumbled back with a squeal.  Another of the boys in her class, the biggest boy in the room, pushed his face close to hers and sneered.  "Don't get in my way or I'll pull all your hair out."  He tugged sharply on one of her pigtails to demonstrate, and she shrieked.

"Ouch!  Stop it!"

"Make me!"  He laughed and pulled the other one, and Chiharu clapped her hands over her hair.

"Tanaka-kun," their teacher warned from the overhang, and he shrugged and ran off to join his friends.  But not before sneaking a malicious grin her way.

Chiharu shivered.  She really hated boys.

- - - - - - - -

So the first day of kindergarten wasn't perfect after all.  But it was still pretty good, and contentedly she hugged her new bookbag to her chest as she waited by the statue.  One by one, all of her new friends had gone with their mothers, classmates and the older students filtering away.  Still she waited, and her thoughts were so busy with all the things she wanted to tell her mother that she didn't even hear someone approach.

"Ouch!" she cried out at the sharp pain in her scalp, and Tanaka snickered.

"Crybaby.  Only a baby wears hair like this."  Again he yanked on her carefully plaited pigtail and Chiharu squealed. 

"Don't pull on my hair, stop it!"

"Man, you are such a wimp."  He whisked her bag from her arms and held it above his head, laughing when she tried to reach.

"That's mine, give it back!"

"No way.  Babies don't get bookbags."  He bopped her on the head with it and she whimpered again, and he took the opportunity to jerk one of her pigtails so hard that she almost fell.  Real tears were starting to form in Chiharu's eyes, and she sniffled.  Boys were horrible!  "You're going to cry?  You're so wimpy!"

He laughed loudly, then yelped with surprise.  Chiharu heard a thud, and blinked away her hot tears to see that Tanaka was on the ground at her feet.  Huh?

"Hi!" someone else said perkily, and a stunned Chiharu watched Yamazaki-kun crouch down next to her tormentor.  Had he… _tripped_ Tanaka?

The bigger boy's pudgy face grew dark with fury.  "You little -"

"Of course, you know about pigtails."

She blinked.  So did Tanaka.  "Huh?"

"In the past, all girls used to wear their hair in them.  Before they had engagement rings, men used to ask girls to marry them by tugging on their pigtails.  It was a lot cheaper than buying a ring."

"What?"

"So then the boy and the girl would get married!  Of course, now the two of you will have to get married."

_What?_

Chiharu choked down a horrified gasp, and Tanaka looked properly revulsed.  "Get- get married?"

"Oh sure.  I mean, it's a promise.  Every time you pull her pigtails it just means that you love her and you want to get a house with her and -"

"I'm not getting married to a _girl!_" the frantic schoolboy shouted.  Fast as he could he scrambled to his feet and took off at a run, fleeing her cooties.  Still shaken, Chiharu watched Yamazaki laugh with delight.  It was such a rapid shift from panicked to perplexed that she hadn't quite caught up, and she felt a pair of hot tears squeeze out of her eyes.

She wasn't aware he'd noticed until he pushed a handkerchief into her hands.  Muttering a thank you, she looked away and dabbed at her cheeks, more embarrassed that he'd seen her cry than anything. 

"Your stories are silly," she mumbled, not looking up.

"You think so?" he asked breezily, not sounding disturbed.  "I think they're fun!"

"They're just lies."

"I guess."  He leaned forward, and Chiharu hiccuped with surprise when she found herself looking directly into his eyes.  "What's your name?"

"Mihara Chiharu des."

"Can I call you Chiharu-san?"

A boy, call her by her first name?  Chiharu was so taken aback that she could only stare.  "Why?"

There was something about his grin that made her nervous.

"Cuz I want to."

And with both hands he reached up and tugged gently on her pigtails. 

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Yay!  My first Yamazaki/Chiharu fic!  This really ought to have been a full-length one shot, and it still feels a little rushed, but it's not bad for 75 minutes.  It was a close call, though, and I made sure I had every detail fixed in my mind before I started typing.

Kawaii, Yamazaki was her knight in shining armor!  I know we all think of Yamazaki as the class clown, but something tells me he's got a spine in him.  I cite his fearless approach to Li early in the series.  While Li's antagonism was directed specifically at Sakura, I'm sure the kid wasn't exactly polite to anyone else in the class either.  Something very intimidating about that glare.  But Yamazaki just waved it away with a smile.  He may not be a fisticuffs fighter, but he's no wimp.  And he was smitten with Chiharu from the very beginning.  She might be right that he told them to get attention in class, but I think it quickly evolved into just getting attention from her. 

Oh, and while she calls him Yamazaki-kun in the series, I can't ever think of a time when he addressed her by name period.  Yet Sakura was troubled when he called her Mihara-san in the 'loveless' universe during Final Judgement, so I guess he was calling her Chiharu. 


	13. moonglow

Challenge: One False Pairing  
Canon: post-anime  
Genre: Fluff. This is **not** optional.  
Rating: PG13, skating on the edge of R.  
Words: 980  
Stipulations: Write the pairing you always declared you'd never, ever write, and do a good job of it too.  Have at least one line quoted from a poem of your choice.

Tease:  Two-thirds of a threesome is technically a pairing.  Intrigued? 

**'moonglow'**

Sunlight came gradually, spilling like melted butter through the half-drawn curtains and teasing his eyelashes.  Syaoran stirred slightly under the golden wake-up call, turned over in the sheets, and automatically draped his arm over the one curled up at his side. 

A masculine murmur of contentment filtered into his senses, and that's when he finally opened his eyes properly.  Dark golden brown met somewhat lighter golden brown, and Yukito smiled drowsily.

"Ohayo, Syaoran-kun."

Abruptly awake, Syaoran stiffened and felt his face turn hot.  "Ohayo," he muttered, and realized his arm was still curled over Yukito's exposed chest.  "Sorry," he added and quickly withdrew it, hand brushing across that impossibly smooth skin. 

"It's all right, Syaoran-kun, there's no reason to be embarrassed.  You certainly didn't hold back last night."

Memories whisked through his mind, igniting guilty pleasure, and Syaoran could hear his own breath quicken.  "I know, it's just…" 

Defensively he scooted a few inches back and turned slightly, enough to glance back at the other occupant in the bed.  Never the first to wake, she was still peacefully asleep with a little smile clinging to her lips and honey brown hair splashed across the pillow.   

"It's… different now," he concluded lamely.

"Why?  Because it's just the two of us?"  Yukito propped himself up on an elbow, looking amused, and Syaoran wished he hadn't noticed how the sheets fell to his slender waist.  "How does that make anything different?"

"It just does," Syaoran declared, and Yukito chuckled.  Damn him.  How could he feel so comfortable and at ease in their bed like this, why couldn't he be at least half as flustered as Syaoran was right now?  And why were they so close anyway, it was always Sakura that took the center of the bed before.  Why was he in the middle?

"I know that you're here for Sakura," he added.  "I don't think I- and you, um…"

Yukito's amused expression softened, and he too glanced at the sleeping beauty beyond Syaoran.  "Yes," he admitted, "that's true.  I am here for Sakura.  And I thank you, we both do.  If you could feel the strain of it, how hard it is -"

"I know," Syaoran assured him.  "It's okay, I understand." 

He hadn't, at first.  Sakura was his, the girl he loved more than anyone in the world, the girl he once thought would never feel another's touch than his own.  He'd kill anyone that tried.  And she did love him, she'd cried into his shirt, she loved him and him alone. 

But the pull between master and moon guardian had been stronger than any of them expected.  Sakura suspected even Clow himself was unaware of it, as he'd never tried to resist it in the first place.  And even though her heart belonged to someone else, as Sakura grew both magically and physically that pull became irresistable.  Syaoran himself could see it, the way they came together as if starving for one another's touch. 

It was the same attraction he felt for Yukito's moonglow a thousand times over, how could he not understand? 

"You really are a kind person, Syaoran-kun," Yukito sighed, in the brief pause that it took for all those thoughts to run through his head, "to share Sakura with me like this.  Toya is very understanding too.  But I was surprised, that you wanted to participate."

Immediately Syaoran went rigid, skin turning hotter under Yukito's direct gaze.  For such placid features, his look could be extremely penetrating.  He muttered something unintelligible, then cleared his throat and tried again.

"I love Sakura.  I don't want to give her up, even for a night.  It's, uh, not so bad." 

"But it wouldn't be fair if you weren't enjoying yourself too."  Syaoran flinched slightly when Yukito brushed the back of his hand along his cheek, but didn't pull away.  "That attraction for the moon magic that you had when you were younger, you still have that?"

It was impossible to lie.  "Hai." 

Yukito was almost luminescent in the early morning light, as if hypnotized Syaoran couldn't look away from those eyes.  Without either of them moving, the inches between them were dwindling away. 

"Luna tu," he murmured thoughtfully, in one of his many languages.  "Fa piu luce dentro questo cuore mio.  Che l'amore puo nascondere il dolore, como un fuoco ti puo bruciare l'anima."

Syaoran didn't ask what it meant, he was afraid to know.  And anyway he was too busy concentrating on the light caress of that hand, still carelessly stroking his skin and leaving a trail of flame wherever it went.  The words came breathily, whispered across that incredibly small space between them.

"You can kiss me if you want to."

What was left of conscious thought scattered, and all his love for Sakura just couldn't compete with this most basic, urgent desire.  If this was what she felt, then he understood.  He understood completely.

The distance between their mouths shrank to nothing and Syaoran closed his lips over Yukito's, invading hungrily and desperately.  Without thinking he took control, in spite of the difference in their ages.  There had once been a time when he looked up to Yukito but the elapsed years and a few growth spurts had altered that.  Now it was he that was bigger, and without question the more aggressive of the two.  His comparatively dark hands ran over Yukito's creamy, smooth skin, exploring, and Yukito rolled back to lie against the sheets with him atop. 

They parted for breath, just briefly, and Syaoran's gaze flicked over to the innocently slumbering Sakura, the only reason the two of them were even in the same bed.  He did love her so much, but he wondered how long they had before she woke.

"I'm straight," he reminded Yukito, and the beautiful perfect exception to that rule nodded.

"Of course you are."

_Luna tu_

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Um, okay.  Is it wrong that I actually had fun writing that?  The problem with writing alternative couples is that I absolutely cannot break up the canon pair.  So if it's not cheating, then it's a threesome.  I'm warped, I admit it. 

But the idea of Sakura and Yukito occasionally needing to 'mate' seemed plausible enough, in spite of loving other people.  It was difficult to work it in, but Yuki and Touya are still a couple.  Yuki merely has to drop by once a week or so.  Very Bohemian.  And in spite of Syaoran/Yukito being a canon crush, this is the first time I've ever seen a fic coupling them.  I often said myself that it's totally unbelievable, and yet… I surprised myself. 

Yes, Tam, it was inspired by your own challenge response.  Be flattered or horrified, your choice.    

I don't do poetry, so Yukito quoted song lyrics.  Both written by and performed by the god-like Alessandro Safina, here is the translation:

Luna tu (Oh moon)

Fa piu luce dentro questo cuore mio.  (Relieve my heart.)

Che l'amore puo nascondere il dolore,  (Love can ease the pain,)

como un fuoco ti puo bruciare l'anima.  (like a fire consuming your soul.)


	14. house of secrets

Challenge: The Lost Cards

Genre: CCS-style, a little on the angsty side

Canon: Mid-anime (no, it's NOT manga)  
Rating: PG  
Length: 5,400 words  
Task: Write one of the 'missing episodes' between the first movie and the beginning of the second season, detailing the capture of either Bubble, Wave, Through, or Libra.

**Episode #35.75**

- - - Opening Credits - - -

They were talking again, he could hear her high-pitched and unmistakably cheerful chatter from here in the hallway.  His replies were barely audible over the noisy beeping video game, the individual words lost through the wood of the bedroom door.  But he could hear him, without a doubt.

Touya rapped a knuckle against the door, twice, and there was a flurry of hushed conversation before the beeping was abruptly silenced. 

"Be right there!" Sakura sang out, and he winced at the muffled crash.  Seconds later, his flustered and red little sister opened the door, panting.  "Hai?"

"Laundry service," he announced wryly, pushing the door open a little further to get a good look at the room.  The stuffed animal was lying sprawled between the TV and the toy chest, the video game controller just a paw's length away.  Most of the floor around it, and the furniture, was concealed under a layer of scattered clothing that had apparently spewed forth from the little pink suitcase on her bed. 

She cringed at his groan.

"You're still not finished?"

"It's really difficult to decide!" she huffed defensively.  "It's starting to get warm but it's still chilly at night and I just don't know what to pack.  I'll never fit it all in."

She stared mournfully at the mess and Touya nudged her back from the door, letting himself in without invitation.  Crossing her threshold wasn't something he did too much, anymore, he was becoming more sensitive to her space as she grew older.  But it was obvious at the rate she was going she'd never finish before midnight. 

"Jeez, you even pack like a monster would."

"Onii-chan!"

He pulled her desk chair closer to the bed and dropped his stack of folded clothes on the covers. 

"Let's start at the beginning.  Got all your soap and shampoo and stuff?"

"Hai."

She pointed to a zippered pouch wedged in the corner and he pulled away the clothes stuffed in around it, patiently and neatly refolding them. 

"Pajamas?"

"Hai."

"Hairbrush?"

"Oh, I knew there was something I forgot."  She picked her way through the mess to find it, too giddy to let his attitude bother her much.  "I'm so excited I could burst!  Isn't it amazing, that I get to go see Kyoto?  I don't know anyone that's been there."

"Dad's been."

"Dad's been everywhere," she said dismissively, waving a hand.  "I mean someone my age.  I'm so lucky that Tomoyo-chan invited me!"

She fell back onto the foot of her bed, jostling the growing stack of properly folded shirts.  "It's like a giant, early, birthday present," she sighed.  "I bet it will be so much fun.  I wonder what Kyoto's like?"

Touya looked up briefly.  "Will it be just the two of you, walking around?"

"No, there's Ke- I mean, I'm sure one of her bodyguards will come with us when we go out.  And Daidouji-san promised that she wouldn't have any meetings to go to in the evening.  She said she'll take us someplace really nice, fancy and grown-up."  Dazzled by her own imagination, Sakura gazed dreamily at the night sky out her window. 

"And you've got the clothes for that?"

"Hai!"  She pointed to the velvet dress draped across her pillows, moss green and belted at the waist by a lacy sash. 

"Shoes to match it?"

"Oops!"  She scurried into her closet and emerged with a pair of black dress shoes, which Touya used to line the bottom of the suitcase.  Gradually he layered her chosen clothing over them while she prattled on about her upcoming vacation, finally arranging the dress as neatly as he could over all of it.

"Now it's late, get to bed.  And don't stay up all night because you'll just fall asleep when you get there tomorrow."

"Hai." 

He stood up and ruffled her hair, directed one last sharp glare at the stuffed animal, and left the room.

They were already talking again before his hand slipped off the doorknob. 

**  Sakura's Brother and the House of Secrets **

Sakura let out a squeal that made his ears hurt, the next morning, even though she was in the front hallway and he on the living room couch.

"They're here!  They're here!"

The front door opened and he heard the clatter of her suitcase wheels rolling out onto the porch; wearily he stood up to follow.  The fancy black car was idling just outside their front gate, and a woman in sunglasses opened the rear door for Sakura.  Tomoyo waved happily at Sakura from her place in the back seat, while on the far side Sonomi herself alit from the car.  She covered the distance between them at her usual brisk pace, wearing a barely polite smile.  In spite of the attention she lavished on Sakura, she didn't seem inclined to exchange many words with him, and Touya was happy to return the favor.  "The hotel, where we'll be staying," she explained, offering him a business card.  "Now I've got a copy of your phone number, so if anything happens then I'll call." 

"Right."

Necessary information dispensed with, she turned and marched away, waving carelessly over her shoulder.

"Do have a nice weekend, Kinomoto-kun."

"Bye-bye, Onii-chan!" Sakura called out from the car, waving like mad.  He was about to return the wave and remind her not to act like a monster when she hesitated, squinting at the house behind him.  She cocked her head slightly, then shook it, but the car was already rolling forward.  She just managed to flash him another bright smile before the car began to really accelerate, and her face disappeared from the window.  He watched it until it was out of sight, absentmindedly fingering the card in his fingertips, then reentered the house. 

Strange, how quiet it suddenly seemed.  He kicked his shoes off again and shuffled back to the couch, intending to spend the rest of the morning studying before he headed off to work.  But the low table was bare; the book he'd been reading was gone.  Touya blinked at the unexpectedness of it and spent a few minutes hunting around, before he finally found it lying on the floor underneath. 

Weird, he could have sworn he left it on the table. 

- - - - - - -

Fujitaka smiled appreciately at his son over the steaming dishes, when the two of them sat down to dinner that night.  "It looks delicious, Touya-kun, I hope you didn't go to too much trouble to make it."

"No trouble."

"Ika deki mas," he chanted, and dug in with his chopsticks.  A few minutes' worth of silence passed, with no other sound than the occasional rattle of cutlery, and eventually he cleared his throat.  "So how was your day?  Get anything done?"

"Just this.  And got some studying out of the way too."

"For the university exams?"

"Yeah." 

"Touya-kun, I hope you're not going to spend spring vacation doing nothing but studying and working.  You should try and have a little fun too."

"It's fine."

More silence.

"Wasn't it nice of Sonomi-kun to invite Sakura-san on her trip?  I think it's wonderful that she's trying so hard to get to know her.  I hope she's having a great time."

"Mm."

That was one subject Touya was not ready to talk about, and again the conversation withered and died.  While he frequently ate alone and with Sakura, thanks to the odd hours both men kept, Touya couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten with just his father.  Neither of them were in the habit of talking much, after years of Sakura supplying all the dialogue; Touya could remember a time when he used to press sofa cushions to his ears, trying to block out her constant chatter.  Now that she'd left, all the sound in the house seemed to have flown with her.

Fujitaka pushed back from the table with another smile.  "Thanks, I've had enough.  I just remembered I have to call my assistant and tell him to bring extra slides tomorrow.  Leave the dishes soaking and I'll get to them later."

"I'll wash 'em, don't worry about it."

"But you made dinner."

"Don't worry about it," Touya repeated, the edge in his voice sharper than he intended.  He didn't mind washing the dishes, it wasn't as if he had anything else to do.  And it was so obvious that his father wanted to escape. 

A few half-hearted denials later, Fujitaka disappeared into his study and Touya breathed a sigh of relief.  Hot water gushed into the sink, frothing with soapy bubbles, dishes clinked against one another.  The house was just plain uncomfortable without Sakura here, he decided.  Tomorrow he'd meet Yuki at the library and they'd get some studying out of the –

_Crash._

Touya jumped at the loud shatter by his feet, shocked to see shards of a dinner plate scattered all over the floor.  He was still staring at the broken dish when his father hurried into the room a minute later. 

"Goodness, what was that?  What happened?"

"I – uh, dropped a dish," Touya managed, though he hadn't.  He'd placed it in a slot on the counter's dish drying rack, he'd felt it fall securely into place.  Fujitaka stared at him strangely, both of them knowing perfectly well that it was never Touya to drop things and create a mess. 

"Well, no harm done.  Be sure and get all the slivers when you sweep up, those things are sharp."

"Right."

His father left the room and Touya found the dustpan, kneeling to brush all the broken pieces off the floor.  His skin prickled, and Touya suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He left the house as soon as the library opened the next day, only too happy to spend the day away.  He was deep in calculus by the time Yuki showed, who of course conjectured that "Sakura-chan" must be having tons of fun right now on her vacation. 

"But you don't seem very happy about it, Toya.  Don't tell me you miss your little sister already."  He delivered that with a teasing grin and Touya huffed, glaring at his worksheets. 

"Not at all.  It's a vacation for me too, without all the noise and chaos she brings everywhere."

"But the house must be awfully quiet, ne?  And I wonder what you'll do with yourself, now that you can't spend the day teasing her."

"I intend to study for our exams," Touya said pointedly.  "You gonna do the same, or what?"

"Whatever you say, Toya," Yuki answered airily, eyes still agleam with his amusement.  He was the only one in the world that could get away with saying things like that, and he knew it.  Touya didn't really get much studying done that day.

- - - - - - -

After an afternoon waiting tables at the café, Touya returned and found his father was already home.  At least, the car was parked in the driveway, although there wasn't any sign of him inside.  Must be in his study again.  The board declared it was Sakura's turn to make dinner, so without disturbing his father he set about tackling the chore.  Work was distracting to his father, at times, probably he hadn't even thought about it.  Touya didn't mind; he was the one on vacation after all, he had the free time. 

When it was ready he left the kitchen and approached the study door, raising his hand in preparation to knock.  Then he heard a snatch of his father's voice and realized he must be on the phone, possibly with one of his colleagues.  He wouldn't like to be interrupted just for dinner if it was something important, and without thinking Touya tried to pick out the words.

"…no, keep talking… nice, just to… your voice."

What?  Touya pressed his ear against the wood, trying to hear better. 

"…always make me feel better, you know that?"

Resistance disappeared and with a yelp Touya fell forward, face-first onto the carpet with a thump. 

"Touya-kun!"  Before he picked himself up he heard the clatter of a phone returned to its cradle, hastily.  "Touya-kun, daijobu desu ka?"

He groaned slightly and lifted his head; his father was staring at him in shock from his desk chair.  Was his face a little flushed? 

"Fine," he muttered, and pushed himself upright onto his knees.

"What happened?"

"I, uh, tripped and fell through the door.  Just wanted to tell you dinner's ready."  Fujitaka's brow creased with confusion, and he looked at the solid study door.

"But the door's shut."

"I must have kicked it closed again.  Were you on the phone?"  It was part distraction, part prying on his part, and he didn't like the way his father avoided his eyes. 

"Er, yes, just discussing tomorrow's lecture with my assistant.  Don't worry, it wasn't anything important.  I better call him back, though, he'll be wondering why I hung up on him.  Are you sure you're all right?"

Touya stood up and brushed off his shirt, more to be doing something than out of necessity, and nodded. 

"Please go ahead and get started, I'll be there in a minute."  It was clearly a dismissal and Touya backed away, feeling for the knob behind him.  Something clicked loudly when he turned it; the door had been locked.  Lucky that his father had forgotten that.

But then, he never locked this door.

**- - Commercial Card Flash: Touya - -**

"Toya?  Are you okay?  You seem a little distracted."  Yuki waved a hand before his eyes, currently trained on the early afternoon sky outside.  "You're not worrying about Sakura-chan, are you?"

"No," he muttered truthfully.  He was worried about those faint, scant words he heard through the door the night before, every syllable burned into his memory.  He'd scribbled them across the margins of his notebook, staring helplessly at the spaces in between each word.  What had his father really been saying, who was he talking to? 

"Then what's wrong?  You've been staring at the same page for half an hour."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Toya," Yuki reprimanded, leveling a meaningful stare at him.  His best friend could be absurdly dense about some things and so perceptive about others.  It was annoying. 

"I heard my dad talking on the phone last night."

"Yeah?"

"He said it was his class assistant, but… it didn't sound like that."  Yuki looked confused, as Touya groped to explain.  "The words he said, it was like he was talking to someone else."

"Toya, what are you saying?"

"I think- my dad's hiding something from me."  He didn't want to say 'someone', that made it too real.  But he could see by the look in Yuki's eyes that he understood the implications. 

"Oh.  I see.  But Toya, even if he is, which you don't know, is it really wrong?"

Touya could only clench the pencil in his fist, not trusting himself to reply. 

- - - - - - -

His mood was not improved when he arrived at his home that evening, exhausted after both waiting tables and trying to ignore his dark thoughts all day.  That stupid Chinese kid was standing on the sidewalk, right in front of their gate, and staring fixedly at his house.  Such was his absorption in the task that he didn't even notice Touya closing the distance between them, and he took a great pleasure in swatting him over the head.

"Hey!"  The brat glared up at him and took a few steps back, the familiar hostility crackling between them. 

"Are you lost?  Or do you just enjoy hanging around my house and making trouble?"  Warily they circled one another and Touya moved between him and the front gate.

"I wasn't doing anything," the kid snapped.

"Well if you're here waiting to ambush my sister it's going to take a while.  She's on vacation."

The kid blinked, clearly not expecting that.  "She's gone?"

"Yeah, and I suggest you follow her example.  Scram."  He pointed, just to make his meaning clear, and the kid's gaze moved from him back to the innocuous yellow house.  There was almost something like worry in his eyes, and he hesitated, then slumped his shoulders in a resigned sort of way.  Without another word he turned on his heels and strode away, and Touya didn't relax until he was out of sight. 

Good riddance.

- - - - - - -

The sun was setting when the washing machine finished its load, and wearily he trudged up the two flights to hang it on the upper balcony.  Daylight made for faster drying, but the sky was clear enough.  They'd probably be dry before midnight.  He draped a sheet over the clothesline and turned around for the next item, and when he turned back it was lying on the floor.

"Damn it!"  Quickly he picked it up and shook it out, hoping it hadn't gotten too dirty.  Again he hung it up, carefully, and turned away.  The sheet hit the balcony floor with a soft whisper, and he groaned in exasperation.  It seemed it was in the mood to play with him, whatever 'it' was.  Must be bored without Sakura there. 

Hoping it would help, Touya pinned the sheet to the line with clothespins and held out his hands underneath, ready to catch it if it fell.  Nothing happened, and he leaned over to the basket again trying to keep on eye on the clothesline.  The moment he blinked he felt it slip, and quickly reached to snatch it.  He couldn't save it before the sheet hit the balcony floor, but then the sheet didn't really hit the floor this time.  The tail end disappeared right into the wooden planks, which it would have fallen through if he hadn't grabbed it.  He tugged, but the sheet remained stuck fast.  

A pair of headlights swept the driveway; his father was home.

"Oh great," he sighed, and pulled again with no response.  "Come on, let go already.  You've had your fun."

Still no give.  He watched his father get out of the car and walk around to the front, thankfully not looking up, and heard the door open and close.  He'd be coming up to his bedroom, and his balcony was directly underneath this one.  How much of the sheet was visible, dangling below?

A light turned on, bathing the carport roof in its yellow glow, and he heard the scraping sound of his father opening his sliding door just a crack.  He often did that for fresh air, no matter how cool it was, Touya just prayed he wouldn't actually come outside.

"- good to hear your voice again, too."

Touya promptly forgot all about the errant laundry and froze, his blood pounding in his ears. 

"You have no idea how good it feels to talk to you, right now, I can't believe how quiet the house is without her.  I'd forgotten just how moody my son can be."  He paused briefly.  "No, I'm not sure either.  Perhaps it skipped a generation, from his mother's side of the family."

Not 'my wife'.  _His mother._

"Yes, it's lonely.  I miss her smiles.  I miss your smile too, talking on the phone isn't the same." 

Touya's heart pounded in his chest, his wheezing breath a rattling roar in his ears.  He'd forgotten the position he was in and whatever it was he'd been wrestling with evidently grew bored, and released the damp sheet.  He fell over backwards at the suddenness of it and felt the prickling consume him, and the eerie rush of empty air underneath.  As if the wooden planks were nothing more than an illusion, he fell right through them and onto the lower balcony beneath, with a horrendous crash. 

"What the -"

A shadow appeared at the edge of the curtains and then that balcony dematerialized too, letting him fall right into the flowerbeds underneath.  Touya had to bite his lip to thwart the automatic yelp, grateful at least for the comparatively soft soil. 

"Hello?" his father said uncertainly overhead.  "Is someone there?"  Footsteps moved to the railing and Touya scrambled back into the shadows, adhering himself to the brick wall. 

"Huh.  Oh, nothing.  I heard something hit the balcony, but maybe it was just the neighbor's cat.  It was awfully loud, though."  Every word now sounded clear as chimes to Touya, his father was not going back inside his room.  Frozenly, not even feeling his own throbbing muscles, he listened to the remainder of the conversation. 

"It's been too long since we've gone out.  And I have to get out of this house, I can't take the silence anymore.  Why don't we have dinner tomorrow?  That really nice place, Iroha."  She must have agreed, and then he spoke again.  "Great.  I'll meet you there at eight, then.  Can't wait.  I love you."

And Touya's world exploded.

- - - - - - -

Cool night air, still too cool for comfort in late March, whisked past him unnoticed.  He felt nothing, saw and heard nothing as he streaked his way through the streets of Tomoeda.  Heard nothing but those horrible three words, anyway, still ringing in his head so loudly that he was sure he'd go mad.  Those words that left him gasping for air and scrambling onto his bike, the moment his father shut the glass doors again, pedalling in only his socks and neither knowing nor caring where he went.  Just so long as it was anywhere but that house.

He supposed it was inevitable, that he came here in his panic.  Breathing raggedly, Touya braced one foot against the cold sidewalk and looked at the Tsukimine Shrine arch, the grounds beyond already shrouded in shadows.  Would she be there, calmly cleaning the shrine like always?  Look up unsurprised when he came stumbling to her side like a shellshocked survivor of Hiroshima?

That was the way it had always been, before.  It was her gentle nature, her detached wisdom, her rational explanations that he depended on when it seemed his life would spin out of control.  But then she abandoned him too, left without more than ten minutes' warning that it was all over. 

That part of his life was ended now, he couldn't go back.  He dropped the bike and stumbled blindly to the trash bin on the corner, bracing his hands against the edge and bending over.  He hadn't even eaten dinner and lunch was a long time ago, but whatever was left came up quickly enough.

His own sister didn't even remember her, and now his father, the man who was supposed to love his mother until the end, the man who _still wore his wedding ring_ had moved on too.  Said 'I love you' to some stranger, some woman that didn't even know what they'd all endured after his mother's death. 

"How could you?" he whispered.  "How could you?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It much later than usual when Touya descended the stairs the next morning, but his father must have been waiting.  He looked up from the table when Touya entered the kitchen, and smiled, but there was a hint of worry in his eyes.  Touya stared fiercely at the floor. 

"Touya-kun, where were you last night?  I didn't even realize you weren't home, until rather late.  Were you studying with Tsukishiro-san?"

Unable to speak, Touya nodded. 

"Honestly, Touya-kun, this is your vacation.  I'm glad you're taking the exams seriously, but I think you should try to have a little fun too.  Here."  He produced his wallet and counted out several yen notes, laying them on the table where Touya could just see them in the edge of his vision.  "I'm having dinner with a few of my colleagues tonight, to talk about an upcoming lecture.  Why don't you go and get a pizza with Tsukishiro-san?  I can't remember the last time you went out and enjoyed yourself."

Dinner with colleagues.  Touya stared at the scribbled information on their family's message board, recalling all those late nights and overnight stays.  Were any of them true?  How long had this been going on? 

His eyes moved from the board to his mother's photo, her angelic smile beaming at him from within her frame.  The urge to speak almost bubbled over right then, but somehow he contained it and only nodded again when the traitor stood up, waving his farewells for the day. 

The door slammed shut and Touya snapped; he tried to kick the wall.  But his foot only slid through it. 

- - - - - - - -

"Okay," Yuki panted, when Touya's bicycle finally rolled to a stop.  "Now can I ask what's going on?  Ooh, are we eating at Iroha?"

His eyes lit up but Touya snapped a negative and pulled his friend's sleeve, tugging him back into the shadows of the building across from the restaurant. 

"He's coming, Yuki."

"Pardon?"

"I heard him, on the phone last night.  They're meeting here, for dinner.  And he _lied_ to me about it, he told me he was eating with his friends!"

Touya cast an agonized look at his friend, whose expression became properly sympathetic.  "Oh, Toya… I'm sorry.  That couldn't have been easy to hear.  But why are we here?"

"I have to see it for myself," he snarled.  "I have to _know_ before I throw it all in his face.  How could he do it, Yuki?  How could he betray her like that?"

"Toya, it's been a long time -"

"It doesn't matter!  It's wrong, he knows it's wrong.  Why else would he keep it a secret from me?"

"Maybe because he knew you'd react like this?" Yuki suggested gently. 

"Why shouldn't I?" Touya snarled.  "It seems I'm the only one in my family that even wants to remember her."

"Toya, I know you don't think that's true.  Sakura-chan would give anything to remember more of her mother.  And just because your father is having dinner with someone doesn't mean he's forgotten her."

"He said he loves her, Yuki!  I heard him."  He uttered a strangled gasp and took a step back into the shadows.  "He's here."  His father had arrived, one hand in his overcoat's pocket, a solitary pink rosebud in the other.  "Oh my god, he brought her a _flower_."

"Toya, take a deep breath.  You're looking rather pale." 

"He lied to me, Yuki," Touya repeated, plaintively.  "He lied, they both lied.  Everyone in that house, they're all keeping secrets!  Nobody… trusts me."  He tightened his grip on Yukito's jacket, only vaguely aware that he was doing so.  "They don't trust me, they don't want me around, they don't want me…"

Before he knew what was happening he'd collapsed onto Yukito, who gripped him in a hug.  His chest heaved with a sob and Yukito squeezed comfortingly, with a strength his slim frame belied. 

"They don't want me!"

"Shh.  They still want you, Toya, your family loves you.  They'll always love you, and your mother.  I promise."

Touya could feel his own body shaking and tried to breathe, clutching at Yuki as if he'd fall through the earth upon letting go.  And the way things had been going lately, he just might.

"If it's any consolation, I'm not keeping any secrets from you."

_That you know of_, Touya thought dully, but said nothing.  It felt good to just be like this, holding the only person in the world that genuinely trusted him.  For one precious moment, it was all that mattered.

"She's here," Yuki said softly, and Touya tensed.  He'd changed his mind, suddenly he couldn't bear the thought of seeing the woman who'd replaced his mother.

"I can't look.  Tell me."

"Well, she's very pretty, and has long black hair.  She looks kind.  And your father is smiling, Toya, he looks really happy." 

Touya couldn't say anything to that, and Yuki squeezed him again. 

"Don't you think your mother would be glad, knowing he's happy?"

Gentle hands caressed his face, hands that didn't belong to Yuki.  Startled, Touya looked up and into her green eyes, taken aback by her sudden presence.  As if determined to prove Yuki's words, she cupped his chin and smiled tenderly. 

_It's all right_, her eyes said.  _Don't cry for me_.

"Yes," Touya whispered shakily.  "Thank you."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The insistent beeping of his alarm clock dragged him out of his slumber the next day, not caring what a rough night he'd had.  Groggily Touya rolled over and slapped at it, his hand waving through it like it was thin air.  Apparently the presence in this house felt he needed a more dramatic wake up call, and the bed disappeared out from under him entirely.  Touya yelped with surprise before he landed on something soft and cushy, and he opened his eyes to see the family living room.  Miraculously, they'd put the couch right underneath his bed, and he never knew that until now.  Small favors.

"Touya-kun?"  His father appeared in the doorway, looking puzzled.  "Um, good morning.  I didn't even hear you come down the stairs."

"Well, that's because I fell through the ceiling."

His father smiled uncertainly, then wisely decided to drop the subject.  "Did you have a good time last night?"

"Oh swell.  You?"

"Yes, actually.  I had a very nice time."  Touya watched his smile grow, his eyes focused inward, before looking at him again.  "But Sakura-san is coming back home tonight, so I'll make sure and cook something special.  I'm sure she has endless stories to tell us."

Constant chattering and wild gestures, probably spilling her drink every time she remembered a new anecdote.  Touya couldn't wait. 

- - - - - - -

It was a fine day, almost warm enough to be true spring that afternoon.  The light breeze tossed Yuki's pale hair back as they walked through Tomoeda.

"So how do you feel?"

"I'm okay."  Not a lie, he was neither great nor awful.  Just okay.

"Are you going to talk to him, tell him that you know?"

"I don't know.  Maybe.  Or maybe one of these days he'll tell me."  He shrugged and Yuki smiled, looking a little relieved. 

"So you don't hate him?"

"Nah.  He is my dad, after all."  It hurt, but was it reasonable to expect his dad to be alone for the rest of his life?  There was a time, after Kaho left, when Touya was sure he'd never love again.  Nothing could compare to what they'd shared. 

He glanced at the boy walking beside him, his face turned up to the gentle midday sunshine in perfect contentment.  Now things were different.  It wasn't the same as Kaho, but it was still good after all. 

On an impulse he took Yuki's hand and pulled him across the street.

"Toya?"

"Sakura's coming back tonight and I don't know if I'll have any free time next week to buy her birthday present.  Might as well get it now, she loves this store.  Always talking about it."

He pushed open the door and a bell tinkled. 

"Oh that's right, it's the first of April, isn't it?  I should get her something too, what do you think would be appropriate?"

"Yuki, you could get her a rock from the parking lot next door and she'd probably build a shrine for it."

"To_ya_."

"Good afternoon," the shop owner greeted sweetly, tucking her long black hair behind her ears.  "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I need a birthday present for my little sister, and she comes here a lot.  You know her?  Name's Kinomoto Sakura."

The woman's chocolate eyes widened just a little.  "Oh my, then you're -"  She bit her tongue and Touya blinked; quickly she flashed a big smile.  "You're Sakura-chan's older brother then."  Looking a little flustered, she dropped her eyes and turned away.  "Yes, I do know Sakura-chan very well.  Let me find something for you."

Something felt strange here, and he turned to see Yuki was staring at the woman oddly.

"Yuki?"

"Ah, it's nothing.  Really," he added when Touya raised his eyebrows.  "Hey, I'm hungry."

"Stop the presses."

"We never got around to eating last night, why don't we go get that pizza when you're done here?  It's the least you can do for me, right?"  He nudged Touya playfully, who realized he did owe Yuki.  A lot.

"Fine, we can get pizza."

"All right!"

- - - - - - - - -

He got a birthday present, from the woman that for some reason felt the need to introduce herself as Maki.  And that night Sakura returned from Kyoto, full of laughter and cheer and all the sound of the house.  Touya was grateful for it, and one other thing.

She took care of the stupid magic.   

**- - - Ending Credits - - -**

This came out more angsty than I intended, but what the hell.  Touya didn't get near the amount of screen time he deserved in the first two seasons, so it felt good to dedicate an episode entirely to him.  Plus I got the chance to work in my fave alternate coupling!  (Fuji+Maki 4ever)  Now we know why the Through Card episode was cut from the line-up.

The reaction to this story was mixed, mostly due to readers more familiar with manga Fuji than anime Fuji.  I've never read the manga, but apparently he's a lot more open in talking about his wife and doesn't disappear nearly as much as he does in the series.  So I'll say it again for those that missed it in the heading:

This is ANIME canon.  Thank you. 

Some also claimed my characterization of Touya was off, since he's so patient about Sakura's secrets in the series.  But just because he was patient doesn't mean he has to like it, which was a lot of my point in this story.  He knows about Kero, knows something is going on, but even after all he does for Sakura she still tries to keep it from him.  And now his father is keeping a secret from him too, and the shock of discovering it makes him momentarily snap.  He's doing his part, why can't the rest of his family just trust him?  But Yuki pulls him out of it, and he reverts to the same mentality for both Sakura and Fuji: taking it in his stride and waiting for them to bring it up.  It's a very mature stand to take, and I don't blame him one bit for throwing a minor tantrum.  Wouldn't you?


	15. meddling kids

Challenge: Whodunnit?  
Genre: Mystery/humor/parody  
Canon: post-anime, though Clamp'll never know of this  
Rating: PG for a little drug humor  
Length: 5,250  
Task: Yes, it's another evil crossover challenge - take desired CCS characters, mix them with your favorite sleuths and catch some clues. You can use any mystery/detective film/series/book/anime you wish in any time setting. Have fun!

Tease: If you can't tell by the title who's going to show up, then this story is not for you.

**'meddling kids'**

It was another evening, ruined.  Li glared irritably at the beautiful scenery around them, the sun beginning to sink and turning the powder blue sky pink in the west.  The evening was warm and gentle, the cherry trees frothing with petals, and the pale moon rising behind the Tokyo Tower. 

It was, in other words, the ideal time to take Sakura for a walk and make out with her a lot.  Romantic and private, not counting the inevitable shadowing pair, but it was all shot to hell and why?  Because his girlfriend was just so damn nice.  Because she couldn't bring herself to say no to anyone when they asked her for a favor, didn't even seem inclined to try.  Her selfless nature was something he'd once complimented, that day in the park, but a few years of interrupted dates and kissing time put on hold had gone by since.  Couldn't she just tell the world to take a hike, once in a while?

The object of his thoughts was, as usual, completely oblivious to his irritation.  She fussed a little with her appearance, checking her reflection in her compact mirror. 

"Do I look okay?  I'm a little nervous."

"You look adorable!" Tomoyo chanted on cue, before he had a chance to open his mouth.  "And what's to be nervous about?  You're just meeting friends of your father, right?"

"Well, students really.  Or student.  She's been taking Tou-san's course over the internet and he says she's so smart, he can't believe how much she knows about ancient languages.  And now that she's coming to Japan on vacation he'd like to meet her.  Apparently she's bringing some friends too."  She smiled wanly.  "I'm really don't mind meeting them to take them to Towa, but I've never spoken with a foreigner before.  I'm not sure my English will be good enough."

"Daijobu, Sakura-chan, I'm sure your English is fine.  And we'll be there to help; Li-kun speaks very good English."

"Hn," Li muttered. 

"I speak really good English too!" Kero reminded them all, from Sakura's purse. 

"But Kero-chan, you can't let strangers see you."

Which made Li wonder why the plushie had to come along at all.  Not that it mattered, the evening was ruined.  He let his head fall back over the bench and glared at the tower behind them, recalling unpleasant memories. 

"I don't see why we have to meet them here, why couldn't we pick them up at the airport?"

"Because they didn't fly in, Syaoran," Sakura explained.  "Apparently the tower was the easiest landmark for them to find coming overland."

"Come again?"

Sakura shrugged.  "She told Tou-san they were coming over on boat so they could bring their own car."

"You're kidding," Tomoyo gasped.  "That must have cost a fortune.  Why couldn't they just rent one when they got here?"

"Don't know.  But I guess we'll find out when they get -"

Tomoyo screeched and Li bolted upright, his neck snapping so hard it hurt.  "What, what?"

Her face was whiter than he'd ever seen, eyes glassy with horror as she pointed a trembling finger.  It wasn't hard to miss what she was pointing at; the garishly painted van swerved across two oncoming lanes and then rolled over the curb, horn blaring at anyone in its way. 

"It's… hideous," she wheezed.  "The green, and the purple, and orange…"  Li wondered if she was about to faint, and whether he ought to go get some water, when the van's various doors all opened at once. 

"- the last time, Freddy, the Japanese drive on the left.  If you can't remember that one simple thing then would you let me drive?"

"Like, here we are at last!  Where's some of that famous sushi?"

"As if you can even see over the wheel, no way am I letting you drive -"

"Oh, would you two stop it?  I can't even concentrate on brushing my hair!"

"Ready to sniff out some grub, Scoob?"

The great dane woofed in agreement, as the three silent teenagers looked on in astonishment.  But there could be no doubt that this noisy group was American, and at last Sakura timidly approached the set. 

"Ano, excuse me," she ventured in careful English.  "Are you Velma?"  She looked uncertainly from the willowy redhead to the shorter girl in glasses, and the latter grinned. 

"That's me!"  She ignored Sakura's hand and bowed, switching to perfect Japanese.  "You must be Kinomoto Sakura, right?  It's great to finally be here, I've always wanted to see Tokyo.  So exciting to meet your father at last.  These are my friends Freddy, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby."  She spoke without pausing for breath, finally indicating each of her companions – including the dog – as Sakura stared openmouthed. 

"Er, hello.  Nice to meet you."  She smiled in welcome to the tall blonde, which prompted Li to move in a little closer to his girlfriend, and then the redhead.  Daphne took one look at Sakura's crystal green eyes and creamy skin and crossed her arms.

"I'm the pretty one," she informed her in no uncertain tone, and Sakura blinked.

"Hoe?"

From somewhere behind him, Li sensed a sudden swirl of animosity.  The hair on his skin crackled apprehensively and he pulled Sakura aside, just before Tomoyo swept in.  Gentle, kind, and self-sacrificing she might be, but this was a breach she could never forgive.

"_No one_ is prettier than Sakura-chan," she said coldly, every word clipped and terse.  Li doubted the American understood how serious her crime was, the way Daphne lifted her chin and tossed her hair back over her shoulder.

"Adorable little bows in her hair, do all Japanese girls wear pink clips like that?"

"At least her clothes match.  Who designed your dress, was it the same person who painted your van?" 

Daphne's eyes flashed dangerously and Li hastily snagged Tomoyo's elbow, pulling her back as Freddy did the same for Daphne.  He couldn't believe his eyes or his ears; he hadn't thought it was possible for Tomoyo to _not_ get along with someone. 

"Um, your English is very nice," Velma complimented, in the ensuing awkward silence.  "Have you ever studied abroad?"

"Not really, no," Tomoyo answered frostily, glare never leaving Daphne's face.  "But I do take a few international college courses online for extra credit at my high school, literature and philosophy and so on."

At this point Velma narrowed her own eyes, behind those thick glasses.  "I'm the smart one."

What the hell? 

Gaping, Li looked back and forth between the three hostile females.  The girl that had tolerated both Kero and Hiiragizawa for years looked as though she was on the verge of attack.  Baffled, he accidentally made eye contact with the tall blonde in the group, and that apparently prompted him to contribute.

"I'm the -"  His gaze lingered on Li's scruffy, unkept hair and untucked shirt.  "Never mind."

Hey!

Before Li could open his mouth, the fourth member of the group and that huge dog rematerialized at his side.  He hadn't even noticed they'd left.

"Groovy food they have here at the vendor stands," he proclaimed, licking his fingers enthusiastically.  "Like, they even cut up the hot dogs to look like an octupus!" 

"Mm-hmm!" Li could swear he heard the dog say, and stared when the canine licked his lips.  Then he pushed his muzzle at Sakura's purse and sniffed loudly, possibly catching onto Kero's presence.  Li steered his girlfriend away, who'd been squeaking helplessly for the past few minutes.

"Towa," he hissed into her ear, and that seemed to hit home.

"Um, well, if you're ready to go… that is, it'll be easier to get to my father's school while it's still light.  Is there room for all of us in your van?"

"Is there room?" the one with the goatee laughed.  "Like, only if you don't mind holding the bongo drums in your lap!"

The what?

For the first time in his life, Li appreciated what his frequent glaring contests with Kinomoto must be like for Sakura.  The tension in the vehicle was insufferably thick, thanks to Tomoyo's waspish attitude and the American girls' stiff silence.  Luckily the one called Shaggy insisted on serenading them with his latest 'groovy tune', inspired by some girl he called 'Mary Jane.'  Sakura was at her wits end, trying to look up all his odd words in her English phrasebook as they sat cross legged on the van floor. 

"Groo… g-r-o…"

She didn't see the dog worm his way across the floor and snuff at her purse again, or a rather impatient Kero lean out and snap at the dog's nose with his gigantic teeth.  Scooby's eyes bugged out a little at that, and he retreated quickly. 

- - - - - - -

The tension eased off some when they finally got to Towa, and Sakura introduced Velma to her father.  The bespectacled pair immediately fell into a discussion of his latest research project, something regarding Mesopotamia, and Li tugged on Sakura's jacket.

"Now can we go?  You've done your job, we don't have to stick around.  These people give me the creeps."

"Syaoran, that's not nice," she whispered in reply, though none of the visitors but Velma had a chance of understanding them.  "They're new in a foreign country, it would be impolite to rush off."  Li eyed Tomoyo sulking in the corner and wondered if it wouldn't be more impolite to stick around, situation being what it was.  "We should at least take them to dinner, right?"

"Someone mention dinner?"  Yukito breezed through the office doorway and stopped in surprise when he saw the small crowd gathered there.  "Gomen ne, sensei.  I didn't know you had visitors."

"Konbanwa, Yukito-san!" Sakura chirped.  "Tou-san has guests from America, let me introduce you."  She rattled off all their names and Yukito switched to his classroom English.

"Oh, hello, welcome to Japan.  Anyone hungry?"

Shaggy and Scooby perked up.  "Like, it's been almost an hour since we ate!"

"I was going to grab a bite in the school's cafeteria, would you like to join me?"

"Would we ever!"

"Cafeteria?" Kero repeated, muffled, from within Sakura's purse.  "I'm outta here!"  Faster than anyone could see he made the short leap from Sakura to Yukito, diving into his school jacket pocket.  Quite happily the four stomachs departed, leaving them alone with the other three and Sakura's father. 

"Oh, Sakura-san, I really need to finish my review on Dr. Hokoto's article.  Velma wants to see the antiquities room, though, would you mind showing her the way?"

"Of course not," she said quickly, just like Li knew she would.  Could she ever _just say no_?

"And be careful, some of the lighting in the school has been shorting out lately.  The halls might be a little dark."

Sakura squeaked again.

- - - - - - - -

"So like, I'll take that and that and those yellow noodles over there, plus that box of sushi and those rice balls.  For now."

Yukito raised his eyebrows slightly, unconsciously nodding in approval.  "I'll take the same, thanks."

"Zoiks!  You're gonna eat all that?" 

Zoiks?

"Aren't you?"

"Well yeah, but I've never met anyone that eats as much as me!  Besides Scoob, of course."  He laughed and so did the dog.

"Somethin' weird about that pup," Kero commented from Yukito's pocket.

- - - - - - -

"I'm a little scared," Sakura confessed in the dim corridor, clutching at Li's hand more tightly.  Li loved it when she did that, it made him want to push her up against the wall and assault her with kisses.  With some difficulty he held back.

"Why, scared of ghosts?" Daphne sneered.

"Actually yes," Tomoyo snapped.  "Everyone's got one big fear, for instance, your fear of wearing colors that don't glow in the dark."

"Speaking of dresses, I just love your lacy collar look.  Is Laura Ashley still a big hit here in Japan?"

"I sewed it myself, thanks.  I'm glad you think it looks professional."

"Smart girls don't waste time on their appearance," Velma said acidly, tugging on her turtleneck sweater. 

"Well I watch college lectures on CD-ROM while I sew, so it works out all right."

Li wondered if the others would notice they were gone if he pushed Sakura into a broom closet right now. 

"Girls, girls," Freddy chided.  "Cheer up, we're here to see these cool Egyptian relics, not argue."

"Mesopotamian," both Velma and Tomoyo corrected, then exchanged hostile glares. 

"Here we are!" Sakura announced, the relief obvious in her voice.  "Tou-san gave me the key, let me just unlock it."

She fumbled with her father's key ring, but when she touched the knob the door swung inward.  "Ore?  That's strange, it should be locked."

_Ghost sighting in: five_

"Someone must have forgotten," Freddy guessed, striding through the doorway and slapping at a light switch.  He flipped it up and down a couple times with no response from the lights.

_four_

"The lights are out too.  You should tell your father, that's not safe."

_three_

"Freddy, do you have your flashlight?"

_two_

"Of course, I was a Boy Scout, wasn't I?"

_one_

The blonde produced his pocket flashlight and pressed the switch, bathing part of the room and a wafting transparent figure in its glow.

"GHOST!" everyone shrieked, and tore out of the room.  Li was almost yanked off his feet by a terrified Sakura, and as it was she dragged him a good long distance down the hallway until they reached a better lit corridor and stopped for breath. 

"What the -"

"Did you see it?" Sakura wailed.  "It was so scary!"  She buried her face in Li's shirt, who was momentarily distracted by her pleasant nearness.  If only these other twits would go away –

"I saw it," Velma affirmed.  "A ghost among the Mesopotamian relics!  What could it mean?"

"But it's not a -" Li tried to say.

"Maybe it's an angry spirit?" Daphne suggested.  "It wants its things returned to their rightful resting place."

"But I can sense ghosts and that wasn't a -"

"That can't happen!" Velma protested.  "Kinomoto-sensei's project needs those relics!  We have to get to the bottom of this."

"Right."  Freddy nodded wisely and started making plans.  "We'll split up, and check out the school."

"Why?" Li asked, still ignored.

"Daphne, you and I'll take Sakura, and Tomoyo and Velma can go with Li."

Li choked, too shocked to say anything before Freddy took his girlfriend's hand and started leading her away.  "Scream if you see anything!" he called over his shoulder.

And then it was just Li and two brunettes glaring icicles at one another. 

"I can read hieroglyphics," Velma challenged.

"I can solve calculus in my head."

Li whimpered. 

- - - - - - - -

Yuki hadn't shown up at the lab by the time Touya finished his chemistry work, and it was with a resigned sigh that he entered the cafeteria.  It was empty save the table in the far corner, where Yuki, some guy with a goatee, and an enormous dog were vacuuming up the last of their food.  Touya had never seen a dog sit upright and eat with his paws before, but it wasn't overly weird for someone with a family like his.

"Thought I'd find you here," he grunted, pulling up a chair and dropping into it.  "I'm finished with my lab work, you ready to go home?"

Yuki hesitated, looking from his empty plate to the other guy's.

"Are you full?" he asked casually, in English.  This must be one of the American visitors his father had spoken of.

"Not really," the other guy answered, just as casually.  "Scoob?"

The dog grunted a negative, which prompted Touya to raise his eyebrows. 

"I'm not full either," Kero muttered from his place next to Yuki on the bench. 

Touya shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware of a strange tension in the air.  "Um, Yuki?"

"I can eat more," his boyfriend announced, almost challengingly, and the skinny American lifted his chin.

"Like so can I."

"They serve egg rolls here.  Really greasy ones."

"Sounds good.  Bring it on."

- - - - - - - -

"Daidouji," Li tried, as patiently as he could.  "Listen to me.  You know that I can sense ghosts, right?  And that thing back there wasn't a -"

"Isn't it just crazy about Stephen Hawking?" Velma said airily.  "Flipping around on the black hole debate like that."

"Well I suppose the foremost authority on astrophysics is allowed to modify his theories.  I think he's quite right in supposing light and not distance is warped.  And you know, just because you're an autumn doesn't mean you have to wear red and orange together."

Velma's glare smoldered and Li took a couple steps back.  Distantly, he heard a familiar shriek and took off without thinking, sprinting along the corridors and turning a corner too fast.  He collided with Freddy and they both hit the floor.

"Ouch," Li groaned and tried to sit up again.  Sakura slammed him back onto the tiles when she threw herself on him, quivering with fright. 

"Did you see it?" she cried.  "It was a ghost and it chased us!  It was horrible!  Oh, I hate ghosts!"

Hey, and now they were horizontal.  Unable to help himself, Li wrapped his arms around Sakura's waist to pull her closer, seeking her lips. 

"It's okay, Sakura, it's gone now," Freddy offered, pulling her away from Li and to a standing position.  "No need to be scared."

"You were running too," Li pointed out, again ignored. 

_Clue spotting in: five_

"Is everyone okay?"

_four_

"Why did you go looking for it if you were just going to run away when you found it?"

_three_

"My hair got a little messed up," Daphne fretted.  "Anyone got a mirror?"

_two_

"Oh, here."  Sakura offered her compact, and cringed a little when Daphne snatched it out of her hand.  Tomoyo snarled.  Li wondered if he was the only one that could hear himself speak. 

_one_

"Jinky!" Velma squealed.  "I think I found a clue."

"Really?  What?"

"Look at this."  She crouched and traced her fingertip along the floor by the wall, and everyone gathered around.  Everyone except Sakura, who was looking up 'jinky' in her phrasebook.  "It's red clay soil."

"So?"

"So, Japan's soil is -"

"Alkaline, not clay," Tomoyo finished. 

Velma bristled.  "But this clay soil is very distinctive to northern -"

"China, or perhaps Mongolia."  Tomoyo crossed her arms and smirked, and Li decided enough was enough.  Desperate times called for desperate measures.  While they postulated on what this could mean, he backed away and pressed several buttons in his phone – a number that Sakura had programmed into it and he never thought he'd want to use.

Ring… ring…

"Moshi-moshi, my favorite descendent," Eriol greeted, tone as suave as ever.  Li gritted his teeth.  "To what do I owe the honor of this expensive call?"

"Hiiragizawa, you gotta help me."

"You're asking me for help?  My, my."

"Shut up and listen.  Sakura's freaking out and doesn't hear a word I say, and Daidouji's gone off the deep end.  I don't know who else to talk to.  There's this bizarre group from America, they're convinced there's a ghost in the university -"

"Four kids, talking dog, van with a paint job a blind man couldn't miss?"

Li blinked.  "Hai.  How did you -"

"They were in England a few months ago, sniffing around my mansion.  I think my neighbors must have spotted Spinel flying around in his large form."

"How did you get rid of them?"  Li eyed the group as he spoke quietly into the phone; Velma and Tomoyo were still arguing about the significance of the dirt while Freddy tried to look like he understood and Daphne fussed with her hair.  Sakura was still hunting through her phrasebook.

"Oh, it's not easy.  They won't leave until they've found what they're looking for."

"And what's that?"

"Mystery, cute descendent.  Didn't you read the lettering on their van?  They won't leave before they've pulled off the mask."

"Mask?  What -"

"Just remember to let them do the work.  Ja ne."  A click and then a dial tone blared into his ear, apparently his evil ancestor had given all the advice that he cared to. 

"C'mon gang, I think we need to check out that relics room again.  Something tells me there's more going on here than what it seems."

"We're not a gang," Li tried to say, but nobody paid any attention. 

- - - - - - - -

Yuki blinked and swayed a little, and Touya perked up, but then he placed his hand against the table and seemed to collect himself. 

"Delicious!  Don't you think?"

"Like out of this world," Shaggy agreed, rubbing his hand over his swelling belly.  "Right, Scoob?"

"Ruh-huh!"

Yuki braced his elbows on the table and leaned in, eyes daring.  "They have cherry pie here."

"Is that so?"

"And they serve really big slices.  You up for a couple?"

"Just a couple?" Shaggy repeated loftily.

"Or maybe the whole pie, if you think you can handle it."

Touya dropped his head back onto his folded arms with a groan.  All he wanted was to get out of this place and go home, have sex with his boyfriend and go to sleep.  Who knew Yuki could get so competitive about defending his appetite?

"Oh I can handle it.  Scoob?"

"Res please!"

"Kero?"

"We can eat anything they can," the sun guardian promised his counterpart, and slapped his paw against Yuki's palm.  Shaggy blinked blearily at the little creature, now sitting atop the table.

"Did you know your teddy bear talks?"

"Did you know your dog talks?" Touya pointed out.  Yuki stood, listing slightly, and made his way to the counter to collect the pies, and someone strode through the swinging doors.  Touya looked up and scowled.

"Perfect.  What do you want?"

Li crossed his arms and returned the look, but only out of habit and briefly.  "You want to get rid of these freaks?"

Touya straightened, interested but afraid to hope.  "You mean it?"

"More than anything.  Come on, I've got an idea."

- - - - - - - - -

"Okay, so when the ghost comes through here, Velma will yank on this cord and trip it.  When she shouts, I'll drop the bucket of water over it.  Got it?"

"What do I do?"

"Just stand around.  You're bait."

"I'm always bait!"

"But it's not like we can put Velma out there, for crying out loud."

"Thanks, Freddy."

"Why can't she be bait this time?"

"Hoe?"

"Better yet, both of you can be bait.  Ready to go for it?"

"Ano -"

"Oh, Sakura-chan Fighting the Ghost!  I wish I'd brought a costume!"

"Where's Syaoran?"

- - - - - - -

"What do you know about your father's project?" Li asked as they ran lightly through the darkened corridors, back to the Humanities department.

"A little.  It's for another dig on the banks of the Tigris, more research on ancient family structure."

"When?"

"This summer."

"Expensive trip, right?"

"Sure.  Dad had to apply for funding from the university board of regents, but he always gets approved.  He runs the most successful digs."

"Anyone else apply for the same money?"

Touya frowned in thought.  "Yeah, actually, he told me.  He felt a little bad about it, so he said he would help the guy write an article on his own theory…"

That triggered Li's own memory, and his thoughts traveled back to the conversation with Kinomoto-sensei in his office.  "Ho-Hokoto?"

"That's right!"

"Where's his office?"

"Not far from Dad's.  Right this way."  Touya led Li to another office door, who made short work of picking the lock.

"Your family teach you how to do that?"

"Sort of.  My evil ancestor."  Li shrugged and pushed open the door.  Right away he spotted the familiar art of his home culture, framed and arranged all over the walls until there was no bare space remaining.  "He specializes in China?"

"Looks like it.  So what are we looking for?"

"Anything suspicious." 

"You mean like that?"  Touya pointed to a photo on the desk of an older man, presumably the professor, embracing a leggy female that was presumably _not_ his wife. 

"Um, a different suspicious."  Li opened a side door and found himself looking at a jumble of electronic equipment.  Boxes filled with wiring and pliers that would be just right for doctoring ceiling lights, not to mention the fancy holographic equipment.  "Stuff more like this." 

"Oh, I get it.  So let's take this stuff and show it to -"

"No."  Li was shaking his head, remembering Eriol's words.  "I don't think so.  I think they have to find it; they have to solve the mystery."

Touya exhaled in irritation.  "So how do we do that?"

"Not sure.  But at least we have this.  Let's go find everyone and then we can figure it out."

It was a big school and Li was worried they wouldn't be able to find Sakura again, but as it turned out that was no problem.  Hardly had they turned the corner on the way to the antiquities room when they were confronted with the startling sight of the ghost chasing Freddy and Daphne across the hall.  They dove into an office at roughly the same time Sakura and Velma burst out of another one, shrieking.  They crossed the corridor and slammed a door shut behind them, seconds later Daphne and Tomoyo were chasing the ghost the other way across the hallway.

"How are they doing that?" Touya asked, puzzled.  "Those offices aren't even connected with side doors."

"Never mind, this is our chance.  You cover that side and I'll get this one."

"Right."

The stampede was weaving closer.

"Hey gaki, if word gets out that we've been cooperating -"

"I won't tell if you won't."

"Agreed."

The ghost burst out of a door and clotheslined himself neatly on Touya's outstretched arm.  He hit the floor with a satisfying grunt and Touya reached for the pathetically obvious white sheet over his head.

"Don't pull it off!" Li cried out just in time, putting his faith in Eriol's advice.  Freddy was charging by and with no small amount of satisfaction he stuck his foot out.  The blonde went flying and landed with a second grunt right on top of the 'ghost'. 

"Look, you did it," he congratulated loudly.  "You caught the ghost!"

"Huh?"

"Mind if I borrow that?"  Li whipped off Freddy's ascot and put it to more useful work, binding the hands of their quarry behind his back.

"Oh- wow.  Look, gang, I did it!"

- - - - - - -

Li never knew Tomoeda had a sheriff.  But somehow the Americans had him in Towa University and standing before them in just minutes.

"Now we'll see who our ghost is," Freddy declared, and whipped off the sheet. 

"Doctor Hokoto!"

The professor glared furiously without any comment.  Velma was nodding sagely.

"Just as I thought.  Hokoto specializes in the ancient culture of China.  There was still dirt from the excavation site on his shoes when he walked the corridor."

"Tweaking the hallway lighting," Daphne chimed in.  "He wanted to make the school spooky as possible, and didn't want very good lighting to fall on his costume."

"He set up the holographic equipment in the antiquities room for an initial scare, then pulled on the costume to give chase."

Li yawned, and caught Touya looking at his watch.  Sakura was drinking in all this with wide green eyes.

"I see!  But why?"

"He was jealous of Kinomoto-sensei's standing with the board, and angry that the funding had gone to the Mesopotamian dig instead of his own.  He thought if he could scare your father away from working all those late nights, the project would collapse."

Touya snorted.  Bad plan; his selectively aware father was still plugging away at the office and unaware anything had even happened that night. 

"That's right," their prisoner snarled.  "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you -"

"Shut up," both Li and Touya snapped, exasperated. 

"Could you just take him away now, please?"

"And gag him."

The sheriff trundled away with the false ghost and Freddy sighed in a satisfied sort of way. 

"Well, that wraps all that up.  Guess we should get – hey, where's Scoob and Shagg?"

With precise timing, at that moment the missing members of their party staggered around the corner. 

"Like hey, guys.  What's happening?"

"Shaggy, where have you been all night?  You missed all the action!"

"Best news I've heard this week," he slurred, looking blearily around.  "Scooby Doo, where are you?"

"Right rere," the dog muttered from behind him, and both almost toppled over.  Freddy and Velma moved to support them just in time.  For his part, Yuki almost fell into Touya's arms.  Kero was draped over one shoulder, moaning slightly.  Apparently defending the honor of their stomachs had taken more out of them than they'd expected.

"So, who won?"

"Couldn't (hiccup) finish," Yuki mumbled.  "The cafeteria – they ran out of food."

"It was an epic battle, though," Shaggy sighed.  "Like… groovy."

- - - - - - -

Li didn't think he'd ever been more relieved in his life, to see the psychedelic van turn at the school gates and disappear forever.  And it wasn't even midnight yet, there might still be a chance to get some alone time with Sakura –

"Ne, Syaoran, you told me that you can sense a ghost's presence.  Couldn't you tell that he was a fake?"

"But I -"

"And you let me get so scared!  You should have said something."

"I did -"

"Is it because you didn't like Freddy?  That's why you disappeared, right?  To go sulk?"

"What!"

"Li-kun," Tomoyo chided, "we've got to work on your people skills.  There's no call to be mean to people you've just met, after all."

It was, at that point, that Li gave up. 

- - - - - - -

"Coulda had 'em, Toya," Yuki insisted, as the other boy helped him to their car.  "Was so close… I know I coulda held out longer if they just hadn't run out of food."

"I know," Touya soothed, "it's okay.  I don't think you're any less of a man, Yuki." 

"But I was so close…"

Kero hiccuped loudly, then raised his head with a grim smile.  "-s'okay, snow bunny.  Nobody outeats Clow's guardians, not on my watch.  I took care of 'em."  He dropped his head again.

"What do you mean?"

But Kero had passed out.

- - - - - - -

"Another mystery come and gone," Velma sighed, ticking the date off on their logbook.  "Rather simple one, I thought.  Ghost costume needed work."

"Tell me about it.  Still, good thing we were there, huh?"

"Definitely.  But that Tomoyo girl was awfully rude."

"Yeah, she should learn how to get along with people.  Especially ones trying to help her."

Shaggy rolled over onto his back, staring at the ceiling as the conversation swirled around him.  It was meaningless for the most part; some nutjob had tried another scare in a Halloween costume, or something.  Whatever.  He was far more concerned about their own gastronomic match – never had he and Scooby encountered such formidable eaters.  What was that flying teddy bear thing, anyway?

_Lame ending joke in: five_

It was a match well fought.  He and Scooby deserved a prize. 

_four_

Languidly his hand trailed to the grocery bags behind the driver's seat, and he withdrew a familiar box. 

_three_

The lid he flipped open, and full of anticipation he turned it upside down.

_two_

Nothing came out.

_one_

"Hey!  Who ate all the Scooby Snacks?"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Goofy, pure and simple.  But you try recreating a typical Scooby Doo episode with depth and meaning – I guarantee you'll need help from 'Mary Jane.'  I still can't believe that took me ten pages though, which makes for the second time in a row.  It would be really great if the next challenge wasn't quite so demanding – it's bad enough that I couldn't hold myself to a ban on challenges after all.  Damn addiction.  I have NOT abandoned Wildflower.

And I don't know why I made Tomoyo such a bitch, but it sure felt good.


	16. my daughter

Topic: Family Time  
Genre: Contemplative  
Canon: Could be.  
Rating: PG  
Length: 350 words.  Blink and you'll miss it.  
Special requirements: A lot of fics deal with romantic relationships, but there are many other kinds of love- and family love is one of them. How do the CCS families show it? Write about that: a birthday party, the way they spend evenings together, just their daily routine... **Anything goes**. :)

Time Limit: One week.

**'my daughter'**

I love watching my daughter.  Especially on days like today, as I sit with my children in the café atop the Tokyo Tower, the sky a pure fine blue all around us.  And because days like this happen so rarely I sit in silence, drinking her in as my children's laughter and chatter circle around me.  She smiles, and my heart warms at the sight.

She inherited her looks from her mother, thank goodness.  The same beautiful eyes, the same hair – even if it's a different length – and even the same mannerisms.  And she's so accomplished, capable of so many things.  I feel a swell of pride that only a parent can know whenever she achieves some new success, at some level scarcely able to believe that I helped bring someone like this into the world. 

It's been a delight, watching her grow up.  I should have been there for more of it, should have spent more time with her.  I know better than anyone how suddenly someone you love can be snatched away.  I should have been a better father to her, I should be closer to her than I am.  I wish I could do more, honestly, I would give her anything if only I could. 

I enjoyed watching her grow, but I wish it didn't have to be from a distance.

She laughs at something her brother says just then, unknowing.  This is just the way it is, for better or worse, it is the unspoken agreement between us.  Her mother never even told me, probably couldn't bring herself to form the words, but I guessed quickly enough.  That was a strange night indeed, when we came together with my wife – to 'understand one another', as she put it.  It didn't work, but it produced one very beautiful result. 

She glances my way and smiles uncertainly.  "Is something the matter, Kinomoto-sensei?"

I return her smile fondly and shake my head.  "Iie, Tomoyo-san, there's nothing wrong.  I'm just glad you could join us today."

If this is the only time that I can spend with her, then so be it.  I am a lucky father.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

But I am twisted, huh?  I've been squirming to do a Fujitaka-is-her-father fic for ages now, so thank goodness I finally got that out.  I will concede that L-chan gave me the idea, but I stole it without conscience because I knew she'd never write a story for it.  Touya and Tomoyo are half-siblings now, and their love can never be.

But I bet Tomoyo would be thrilled to know she's half-sister to Sakura.  So what if it took a threesome to pull it off?  Yes, I know Fuji would never cheat on Nadeshiko, so I fell back on Bohemian CCS again.  It's stretching credibility, but look at Tomoyo herself.  She may have Sonomi's looks, minus the long hair, but personality-wise they are nothing alike!  She's quiet, mature, unconfrontational, and humble.  That's Fuji all over.  And she's obviously just as smart as either of them. 

We'll never know for sure.  But that's one DNA test I'd be interested to see. 


	17. legacy

Topic: Family Time  
Genre: Can something be fluffy and angsty at the same time?  
Canon: Yes  
Rating: G  
Length: 560 words  
Special requirements: A lot of fics deal with romantic relationships, but there are many other kinds of love- and family love is one of them. How do the CCS families show it? Write about that: a birthday party, the way they spend evenings together, just their daily routine... Anything goes. :)

Time Limit: One week.

Tease: And this was all he would ever know of him.

**'legacy'  
**  
Like soft, sweet snow the petals were everywhere.  Twisting, dancing on the air and occasionally sticking to his hair.  He did not move to brush them away, bothersome as they were, he knew he must be still. 

Be silent, watch, copy.

"Like this."  The large, calloused hands closed over his little one and curled his fingers under, tucking the thumb around them.  "Keep them tightly closed, or you will hurt yourself.  You hit with only these first two knuckles." 

Syaoran stared uncomprehendingly at his little fist and wondered what it was for.  He didn't dare ask.

"Now watch me."

Plum blossom petals fluttered between them, drunkenly, obscuring the face.  The right arm glided forward in slow motion, and Syaoran watched as instructed.

"Do you see how my fist begins upside down, then turns over?  That makes it stronger.  Watch again."

Twice he repeated the motion.

"Now you try."  He offered an open palm for a target and nervously Syaoran obeyed.  Keep the fingers tucked in, strike with the first two knuckles.  Turn the fist over.  He struck flesh with a satisfying smack, surprised at how good it felt.

"Good, Syaoran, that was very good.  You're a natural, just like me.  Again."

What's a natural?

Again he struck the open hand, desperately trying to remember all the directions. 

"Want to make it even stronger?"  He was not given a chance to answer.  "Now when you punch, I want you to pull back with the other arm.  Like this." 

Syaoran watched. 

"Just when your fist strikes the target, your other fist pulls back to your waist.  It creates a reaction force, yin and yang."

Yin and yang Syaoran recognized; his mother talked of them too.  They must be important.

"Now you try."

Concentrating as best he could, Syaoran followed the new instructions.  It was difficult to split his attention between hitting the target and pulling the other fist back correctly, and he was forced to repeat the action a few times. 

In a way that he could not quite understand, his body fell into the rhythm, and he could feel a sureness growing with every smack.

"Can you feel how strong it is?"

Syaoran nodded. 

"Good, that's how it's supposed to feel.  You're doing very good, Syaoran."

A thrill of excitement and pride shot through him, and he squirmed. 

Strong is good. 

More confident now, Syaoran punched again.  Harder.

"One day you'll be better than me.  I know you'll be ready for them."

A gust of wind tossed the tree branches and petals showered over them both. 

- - - - - - - -

"… and then she let me decorate her braids with all the fallen blossoms," Sakura finished, warm smile playing across her face.  "I loved playing with her hair."

With a sigh she dropped her arms, scattering the fistfuls of petals that she'd caught mid-air.  Like pale confetti they dusted over the park sidewalk. 

"Sounds pretty silly, huh?  The one thing I can remember about my mother and it's playing around under the cherry trees."

Li stared at his fist, opening the fingers and then clenching it shut again.  That was all he would ever know of him.

"No, Sakura, it's not silly."  Jealously Li wondered if that was just how his father showed love, and then if he ever loved his son at all.  "It's beautiful."

Ready for who?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

The punch is the basic right straight punch of tae kwon do, International Federation style.  I don't know the kung fu punch. 

This fits in with one of my other challenge responses in the past, blue chips to anyone that can name which. 


	18. prisoner of cold

Topic: Cold  
Genre: fantasy  
Canon: AU just for the heck of it  
Rating: PG  
Length: 1480 words  
Special requirements: Winter is cold. An aloof person is cold. Coughs and sneezes are a cold. Use "cold" in any context in a scene between one male character and one female character.

Tease:  Beautiful and delicate like a snowflake, hidden away from the world inside his castle.  Better to dream of her than try and take her; snowflakes are not meant to be caught. 

**'prisoner of cold'  
**  
There were no clouds in the night sky.  Like scattered diamonds the stars littered the sky, uncountable, and to him, without names.  Li knew their places by heart, but he'd never bothered to learn what scholars called them – what did it matter?  The stars were the stars as he knew them, and nothing would change that. 

Their light and the light of the moon reflected off the ice around him, glittering.  His breath crystallized briefly before dissipating, and he took a moment to cover his mouth and nose with his gloved hands.  He'd always despised the cold, and he felt a stranger in this land of sparkling ice.  It was a place he would have never ventured if he had the choice.

He rested for just a few minutes, tired after his treacherous climb up the cliffs.  That was surely the most difficult part, and now he could see his destination.  Like something out of a dream the ice castle towered over him, silver in the moonlight, beautiful but unwelcoming.  Nothing moved, but Li still crouched warily and moved forward with caution.  Expert tracker and hunter he might be, but no human had ever come so close to this castle and lived to tell about it.  Even royalty didn't dare trespass on the ice lord's domain.

Which was precisely why his prince ordered Li to do it instead. 

"Get me the girl," he'd demanded, lip drawn up in a cold sneer.  "And you'll be pardoned for hunting in my forest.  They say he keeps her in his castle, and her beauty is unmatched by any other.  What a prize for my harem, don't you think?"

Li had kept silent, but in the end he knew he had no choice.  The punishment for his crime was death.  Swiftly he darted from one ice sculpture to another and then froze behind the courtyard wall.  He didn't dare risk exposure by walking right through the front entrance, and instead edged along the barrier before scrambling up the ice to crouch on top of it.   
Silence.  With all this exercise he was breathing harder, and like smoke his breath clouded in the chill night air.  The surface was slick, but his notched boots and tough leather gloves gripped it well and he started crawling.  Still nothing in the castle blinked, and by the time he felt comfortable enough to stand and walk he'd grown accustomed to the quiet.  The wall wound its way around the castle and intersected with another, which Li followed into the shadow of the castle itself.  To his eyes, used to the luxury of no more than a tent in the woods, the place was impossibly huge.  How was he ever supposed to find this girl?

It was right when he was thinking that that a snatch of sound reached his ears.  Thin and eerie, a girl's song echoed among the ice and he took off for its source, moving as fast as he dared.  The voice grew louder and clearer, individual words easier to distinguish. 

"…pretty, pretty flowers… I love growing the flo-wers…"

Li found her faster than he expected, and he almost fell off in surprise when he did.  The snow-encrusted courtyard was abloom with flowers, a startling profusion of color against the icy white landscape.  How could flowers be growing out of snow?  His prey was skipping and dancing among them, chanting her nonsense song, short white dress flaring around her as she twirled.  She was so small – this was the legendary beauty he'd been sent to collect?  She looked no more than ten, a child.

In an effort to see her face better he crawled forward, but he wasn't concentrating, and Li simply wasn't used to the foreign texture of ice yet.  His boots slipped out from under him and he tumbled off the wall with a yelp, landing rather painfully on the snow below.  She whirled around with a squeak, hands over her mouth and eyes wide with surprise.  Li froze where he'd landed, eyes locked with hers, momentarily unsure what to do.  This was his chance to pounce, but now that he could see her face better something in him rebelled at the thought.  She was just a girl, incapable of hurt.

Wide green eyes stared at him, marbled in absolute shock.  Li's breathing evened out as they traded stares, tiny puffs of vapor that melted away unnoticed.  She didn't seem affected by the cold at all, in her tiny white dress and slippers.

"Are you a human?" she finally ventured, sounding half-amazed and half-fearful. 

Li nodded.  "Yes."

"Wow," she breathed.  "I've never seen one before."  Curiosity overcoming fear, she hopped closer to get a better look.  Short, light brown hair framed her face, crowned by a jewelled tiara, and her skin was creamy and delicate.  She looked human to Li but he didn't say so, watching her approach with a hunter's patience. 

"My name's Sakura.  What's your name?"

"Li."  He shifted his position so that he was kneeling more comfortably on the snow, and she compensated by leaning over to better meet his gaze.

"Why do you breathe smoke?"

"It's not smoke.  I'm just cold."

"Cold?"  She looked perplexed, as though she'd never heard the word before.  Li nodded, and with a kind of fascination she reached to touch the exhaled vapor.  When nothing happened, she cocked her head quizzically and moved on to his face.  Li stiffened but didn't move as her innocent fingertips patted and stroked his cold skin.

"Are you lost?"

"No.  I came here to find something."

"What is it?"

He did not answer her question, but asked one of his own.  "How long have you been here?"

She blinked in confusion.  "Always."

"Are you a prisoner?"

"What is a prisoner?"

Li tried a different tack.  "Would you like to come with me?"  Careful not to move suddenly, he held out his hand and she placed her small one in it. 

"To where?"

"To see other humans."

"Wow, really?"

He nodded and drew her closer, preparing to scoop her up in his arms.  And then his hunter's instinct, finely honed after so many years in the woods, blared a warning.  Faster than his mind could comprehend he pushed himself away from Sakura and dropped to the snow, feeling the whoosh of something streak by overhead.  Sakura squealed and he rolled back heels over head, just ahead of another volley of sharp crystals stabbing into the snow.  The attack ended and Li dropped into a wary crouch, whipping his knife from his belt though he knew it was surely hopeless.

The lord of ice stood before him, gigantic feathered wings outstretched and eyes hard and cold as the castle behind him. 

"Thief," he declared, voice chill with rage.  "How dare you invade my castle and take what's mine?"

Li did not answer, breathlessly waiting for the next attack.  But Sakura tugged on the sleeve of his raised arm, distracting him. 

"Go inside, Sakura."

"But Master Yue -"

"That's an order."

"Please don't hurt him, Master Yue.  I like him." 

Those glacial eyes regarded her with surprise and then turned back on Li, still tense with anticipation. 

"He tried to steal you away from me.  It is unforgiveable."

"But I think he's nice," Sakura insisted stubbornly.  "Can he stay here?  Please?"

What?  Li almost squeaked himself, but had the sense not to open his mouth. 

"You wish for me to keep him?  A thief?  Why?"

"Well…"  Sakura blushed a pretty pink and smiled at him shyly.  "I think it would be fun to talk to him.  We can play." 

Yue seemed to consider this, hand absently stroking Sakura's hair.  She apparently enjoyed the petting and smiled charmingly, eyes full of hope. 

"Are you lonely, Sakura?  You want other company than mine?"

"I like you best!" she affirmed quickly.  "But when you're not here, it's very lonely.  Pleeeease?"

Something in those frozen eyes softened, when she bit her lip pleadingly.  He cupped her small face in his hand and smiled, for just a heartbeat.  Then he looked up at Li and his eyes were ice again.

"If you want to live, you will drop your weapon now." 

What choice did he have?  Obediently Li dropped his hunter's knife point first into the snow, then lifted his hands to his head. 

"Ever lay a hand on my property again, and you'll be dead before you hit the ground.  She's spoken for you, you will remain here as long as she wishes.  Escape is not something I would advise."

A prisoner?  Here in this frozen wasteland?  Never, he'd rather die first.  Li opened his mouth to say so and then saw her delighted smile, directed right at him.  No one had ever smiled at him in such a way.

She really was very beautiful.  And everywhere around him, starlight glittered on the ice. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.

Not a clue where this came from, not even a little one.  I was trying to write a mid-anime canon fic about Li and Kaho but it just wasn't hanging together, and I started flipping through my newly acquired CCS artbook (volume 2) for inspiration.  A picture of Sakura dressed as a crowned fairy with blue jewels kickstarted the imagery, and I can't tell you how the rest happened.  I will blame immersing myself in Wild Flower for the past week and therefore losing all touch with reality.

As for the fic: definitely not continuing it.  Too few characters to make it interesting, and don't ask me how Touya would fit in.  I don't know, just like I don't know why Yue's keeping Sakura in the first place or why Li is so much older than she is.  It's just what I saw. 

Regarding the theme of the challenge:

'cold' was mentioned eight times (including the title). 

'ice' twelve times.

'snow' seven.

'freeze' or some variation thereof, four times. 

Also 'chill' and 'glacial'.  Poor Li, he's really out of his element. 


	19. the prince and the princess

**Topic:** Roots  
**Genre:** not AU fantasy, though it may look it  
**Canon:** pre-anime  
**Rating:** G  
**Length:** 1,310  
**Notes:** The point of this challenge is for everyone to really think about when they first got into their OTPs, what they love about them, and the things that just really make them work for you and to try to turn that into one fic that "shows not tells".

**Tease:** An OTP doesn't technically have to be romance, in my opinion. At least I hope not, because everybody knows the pair I love the most.

**'the prince and the princess'**

The chandeliers were magnificent. Like exotic plants their golden limbs curved and swooped across the ceiling, each of them blossoming with a hundred cut crystals that caught the candlelight and glittered like rainbows. Below them the lords and ladies flocked in the grand ballroom, all light and laughter and luxury. No dress was like the other but all of them were beautiful, soft as a whisper and trimmed with jewels. They were a riot of color, the nobility, as they gathered under the chandeliers, but no one was dancing.

That honor was first reserved for the princess of the palace, and a hush fell over the crowd when she appeared. Without question she was the loveliest girl in the kingdom, the prize of the royal family and adored by everyone. Her diamond studded tiara sparkled in the chandelier lights, almost like a halo, illuminating her emerald eyes and angelic smile. Gracefully she dropped into a curtsy before the enthroned king and queen, dress swishing back into place as she rose. It was always the royal children who held the floor for the first dance of the Midsummer Ball, princess on the arm of the crown prince.

Her brother stepped forward and she placed her hand in his, allowing him to lead her to the center of the floor. The silence had an almost expectant hum to it, answered at last by the stroke of violins from the orchestra's corner. One hand in hers and one on her waist, the prince led her smoothly through the waltz, his every step confident and sure. There was no one she'd rather dance with.

The prince yawned, provoking a flicker of irritation on her part.

"It's late. Aren't you tired yet?"

"No!" The princess pouted a little, and the prince rolled his eyes.

"You know you're supposed to be in bed now."

"Just five more minutes," she begged. "Pleeeease? Then I'll go to bed."

"Fine," he sighed, looking rather put out. The princess beamed at him in the glow of their flashlight and returned her attention to their dancing dolls, waltzing in the grandeur of a blanket palace. Where were they? Oh yes.

Happily the king and queen watched their children dance. Their daughter was the most beautiful princess of any kingdom, near and far, and was also kind and sweet-natured like her mother. And the prince was strong and handsome, destined to become the most powerful king ever. Everyone loved them.

The violins faded and the princess curtsied to her brother; he bowed in return. Then, quite suddenly, the glittering lights in the chandeliers went out with a whoosh, as if darkness itself had extinguished them all at once. Everyone cried out in surprise and fear, but before they could even move the lights flared to life again. The darkness left as quickly as it had come, but when it left it took the princess as well. The prince was alone on the ballroom floor; his sister was gone.

The prince propped his chin on one hand, looking mildly interested. "So what happened?"

A wicked sorcerer that lurked up in the mountains had long ago fallen in love with the princess, but though he'd tried to court her she rejected his advances. The princess knew that for all his power and magic his heart was dark and cold. Determined to have her, the sorcerer had snatched her away from the palace and brought her to his terrible castle on the mountaintop.

"Really?"

"Oh yes!" The princess scrambled over the cushions and up onto the mountain, curling into a ball between bedcovers and the suspended blanket. Though locked away in his tallest tower, a prisoner, the princess was not afraid. Her brother was the strongest, fiercest warrior in the kingdom and she knew he would come to save her.

"I told Dad I would put you to bed. I did _not_ agree to all this."

"Save me!" the princess demanded, and he groaned.

"Fine. How do I save you?"

The prince rode from the palace on his horse, under the moonlight, full of resolve to rescue his sister. Galloping fast and hard his steed closed in on the forbidding mountain and began to ascend, slowing as the slope grew steeper. Soon the path disappeared altogether, and the terrain became impossibly sheer for a horse. The prince dismounted and ordered his horse back, and he continued alone.

"That's some smart horse."

"Shh!"

"Sorry."

The mountain cliffs were treacherous to climb, and freezing winds sent by the sorcerer nearly tore the prince from his grip. But he clung to the rocks and kept climbing, and never did he consider turning back. Somehow he reached the crown of the mountain, where the gloomy castle and his sister were waiting. Hardly had he taken a step toward the gates, however, when a terrible beast appeared.

One of her stuffed animals hit the prince squarely on the nose, and he rolled an impatient groan down his throat.

"It's really late -"

The prince drew his sword and the sorcerer's minion attacked, ferocious claws and teeth met with sharp blade and skill.

"- and you do have school tomorrow. Remember?"

It was a hard fought battle but in the end the prince triumphed, and the beast fell dead to the ground. The prince strode to the gates of the castle and kicked them open – and there waiting was the sorcerer himself.

Furious that the prince had come so far, he attacked him with every kind of magic he possessed. But he could not break the prince's shield, made stronger by his pure spirit and noble heart.

"Where did the shield come from?"

He closed the distance between them and they fought, a terrible duel that threw off sparks and crashed like thunder. The sorcerer was stronger, and the prince already exhausted from his earlier struggles. The wicked man struck a terrible blow, and the prince was thrown back against the wall. He dropped to the floor in a heap.

"Ouch. So then what?"

The sorcerer laughed, sure that he'd won. But before he could muster the attack that would kill the prince, something hard and sharp raked across his face. He cried out in pain and lifted his hand to his face – it was bleeding. His intended prisoner stood defiantly before him, having escaped her tower, diamond tiara still clutched in one hand. She would rather risk death to save her brother than be his. Stunned by this terrible revelation, he never saw the prince move, never saw the attack that ended his life.

"Hey, pretty clever." The prince pricked his ears at the sound of a petite yawn, and sat up. "Now are you ready to go to bed?"

"I'm not tired."

"I think you are."

"-m not. The prince still has to bring the princess back to the palace, and the king and queen…"

"Sure." He untied the knot in the blanket and the palace collapsed; he draped it over her small body and she did not resist. "But it's the first day of school tomorrow, and it won't come unless you go to sleep."

Unexpectedly she clutched at his hand, her babyish grip surprisingly strong.

"I'm a little scared."

"I thought you told Dad you were excited."

"I am. But I'm a little scared too. What if nobody likes me? What if someone is mean?"

"Then you tell me, and I'll beat 'em up."

Her eyes closed and she smiled, squeezing his hand trustingly. "Course."

With the wicked sorcerer gone the mountaintop bloomed with new life, a riot of colorful flowers covering the dead bare earth. Triumphantly he swept her off the ground and spun around once before hugging her close. And the princess laughed with delight, because she knew she never had anything to fear when he was there.

"Good night."

He was the prince, and he would always protect her.

-----------------------------------------------

Fluffy enough for you? I tossed around a few ideas when brainstorming, having so many favored pairings as I do, but I felt like I'd already done as much 'roots' explorations as I could with other couples. Looking over my stuff, I realized that one pairing seems to show up over and over again more than any other – the siblings.

I'd have given anything for an onii-chan like Touya. What a great brother, raising her like he was her second parent and always trying as best he could to help her out. The story is her pov, essentially, though it was meant to show how they both felt. Remember when you were so little, before you even really knew people outside the family, and your father was the hero in your stories? That's what I was trying to recreate here, except it's brother because let's face it – Touya does a lot more parenting than Fujitaka ever does. And at this impressionable young stage before she meets the outside world, she worships him.

The story is straightforward enough to have come from the mind of a five year-old, I hope, but written as she probably saw it in her mind rather than how she actually told it. Hence the vocabulary that I know she wouldn't use, even if she can picture the story perfectly. Never mind, Onii-chan knows what she meant.


	20. just thought you

Topic: Letters  
Genre: humor  
Canon: post-anime  
Rating: PG-13  
Length: 80!  
Requirements: Write a letter from one character to another. The letter must contain a secret or confession of some kind.  _(look for it)  
_Time taken: 20 minutes

**'just thought you'd like to know'**

To:          touyak (at) hotmail . com . ja

From:     wolfighter (at) earthlink . net

Subj:      just thought you'd like to know

Hey Kinomoto,

Sakura really loves Hong Kong.  A lot.  She says she likes how new and exciting it all is, and all the different things she's learning.  It gets really hot and sticky here, especially when she's been getting a workout, but she doesn't mind.

She's thinking about staying on longer than she planned.  Hasn't had her fill yet, I guess. 

Maybe she'll stay forever?

All the best,

Li

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Only wish I could see the look on his face.  And… click Send. 


	21. season of change

Challenge: Autumn People  
Canon: mid-anime  (NOT manga)  
Genre: Romance

Words: 815  
Rating: PG  
   
Requirements: Must be set in autumn and contain some reference, no matter how small, to the season. At least one of the main characters must have brown hair.

**'season of change'**

It was a different sort of blue for the sky, in October, it was no longer the rich dazzling blue of midsummer.  With the cooler winds it turned thinner, the pale and fragile blue of a robin's egg.  It was particularly beautiful contrasted with the dizzying explosion of color in the trees; a fresh breeze blew and painted leaves sprinkled everywhere, scarlet and gold and orange.

Without thinking about it Fujitaka reached forward and grasped one.  It looked so alive, dancing butterfly-like in the wind, but in his hand it was scarcely more than brittle paper. 

"She never really cared much for autumn, my wife.  Even with all the beautiful trees and tasty apples, she didn't like it.  It meant death to her, just a flashy ending.  Spring was her season."

He opened his hand and let the leaf fall, joining its mates that already littered the earth.  She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it.

"Sometimes," Maki complained, "I feel like I know your wife better than I know you."

Fujitaka looked up and met her troubled eyes.   

"Do I really talk about her that much?"

"She loves spring.  And rainbows and sakuras and peaches.  She wore ribbons in her hair and preferred pastels, and white was her favorite color."

It was a thorough answer and he cringed in remorse; how could he be so insensitive?  After so many years of deriving comfort from talking about her, he'd begun to keep company with someone that might not appreciate it.  But she never gave him a chance to apologize, taking hold of his chin and gently tipping it up. 

"How do _you_ like autumn?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

Fujitaka felt strangely at a loss under her expectant gaze.  "Well, it's a nice enough season I suppose.  To tell the truth, I'm always nose-deep in midterm papers at this time of year, so I've never really thought about it." 

Maki looked rather amused at that, and her lips quirked in the approximation of a smile.  "So think about it."

It was a peculiar habit of hers, that here-and-gone smile always accompanied by mirthful brown eyes.  It was also irresistable, and he leaned in just close enough to brush his lips over hers, inhaling her sweet feminine scent. 

"Hmm…"  Making a show of his consideration, he shifted his position slightly so he could rest his chin comfortably on her shoulder.  Loosely he draped his arms around her.  "The air is cool and fresh," he finally declared.  "That sky is gorgeous, especially against those trees.  And the nicest part of all of it is… right…"  He interrupted himself with a little nibble on her earlobe, and she giggled.  "… here."

His kisses found her jaw and she turned in his arms to face him, welcoming the warm and gentle kiss. 

"I have a confession to make," she murmured, once they'd parted and her head was resting against his chest.

"Mm?"

"I always thought of myself as a summer person.  June was always a light month for both of us and we used to take weekends at the seaside.  Late breakfasts, picnics on the beach… you know.  But that was then.  And this is now and- and if you want to, we could make autumn our season."

Fujitaka froze, and it had nothing to do with her tentative proposal.  His son had just walked out beyond the edge of the trees, on the brick path by the park creek, was walking _right there_ in plain sight and the only reason he'd been spared was that he was busy talking with his best friend. 

She turned her face up at his silence, looking anxious.  "Fujitaka?"

Before she could look in the direction of his gaze he circled around her, turning his back firmly on his son and shielding her view.  Someday, that voice in his mind pestered, someday the truth would have to be told.  He couldn't hide her from his children forever. 

But to take her home meant it was real, that this relationship was going somewhere and not just a fanciful diversion from their grief.  In the chill air, his wedding ring was cool against his skin.  Another gust of wind scattered sunset-colored leaves over them, lifting and tossing her hair like a black silken curtain.

"Autumn," he finally answered, "can be our season.  That would make me very happy." 

The anxiety in her eyes melted into relief, and they shone.  It was only natural that they kiss again and so they did, all the while Fujitaka praying that his son had passed through the park and gone on unsuspecting. 

Share a season, share a moment, this he could do.  But there were so many more steps to take, in that uncertain future, and he wasn't sure he was ready for them. 

Autumn wasn't a season of endings after all.  It was a season of change.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Just another installment in my running FujiMaki series.  This piece is most definitely not my best work, but I like it all the same for its emphasis on Fuji-the-man rather than Fuji-the-father.  Everyone's human, even saintlike Daddy.  They're so cute together, but I just don't have time to write another story right now.  So this will have to do.   


	22. portrait of a warrior

Topic:  Haiku

Genre:  thoughtful?

Canon:  Yes

Length:  Standard 5-7-5 syllable haiku format. 

Task:  Write haiku for any character/pairing in under 15 minutes.

**'portrait of a warrior'**

Born from tradition,

agent of his family,

swayed by bright green eyes.

- - - - - - - -

Flashing in the dusk

with perfect grace; spin and strike.

He will be ready.

- - - - - - - -

Wake up, start fighting.

Beat them all, survive, and win.

Never stop fighting.

- - - - - - - - -

Worth more than power,

she who showed him how to love.

Watch her.  Protect her.

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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I wish I did own him, sometimes.

I've never done a haiku –

Li:  Gseundheit.

- before, and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it'd be.  In fact, it's kinda fun.  Try it!


	23. but she didn't inhale

Topic:  What's this?

Canon:  Death in the Family (hopefully you've read it)

Genre:  Humor, supposedly

Rating:  PG

Length:  620

Task:  One (or more) character discovers 'something' that another character was hiding.  A tangible object sort of something, that is, not just an abstract secret. 

Tease:  The title's enough, isn't it?

**'but she didn't inhale'**

It was, Yukito decided, the most awkward silence he'd ever witnessed.  Thick, uncomfortable, and vibrating with tension, it had blanketed the room like a collapsed tent and now everyone seemed trapped within it.  He didn't move.  Kero didn't move.  Touya, sitting at the table with hands folded under chin, didn't move.  And Sakura, who moments earlier had come in through the doorway all laughter and smiles as usual, stood frozen to the spot.  Apprehensive green eyes moved from the small object on the table to her brother's face.  Even Kero must have been able to see the anger in his dark, flinty eyes, the ominous set of his jaw. 

It was finally Sakura who first spoke, licking her lips nervously.

"Where did you find that?"

"Under your homework," Touya answered evenly, voice dark with menace, "where you hid it."

Sakura lifted her chin, a trace of defiance flashing through her expression.  "So now you're going through my stuff?"

"Obviously I have to."

"It's not mine!" she said quickly, desperately.  "It's Chiharu-chan's."

"Oh and she just asked you to hold onto it for her?"

"Well, I- I was a little curious…"  She melted under her brother's aghast glare, and swallowed.  "I haven't even tried it yet!"

"But you were _going_ to," Touya accused, raising his voice a little. 

"Just once, Onii-chan, everybody in my class does it."

"I don't care what everybody in your class does!"  Touya slapped his hands against the table and rocketed out of his chair, pushing it back with a screech.  Sakura flinched.  "You are my responsibility and I've taught you better than this, raised you better than this.  I thought I could trust you to never touch something like this!"  He brandished the object in question and Sakura looked close to crying. 

"I just wanted to see what it was like, I wasn't going to keep it.  It's not like it's going to hurt me!"

"_N'Sync_?" her brother thundered.  "Sakura, how could you?  How could you bring something like that into my house?  Those talentless teenybopper hacks wouldn't even know how to hold a guitar!  It's not music, it's just… just _modeling_."

"But Onii-chan -"

"Shh."  He clapped his fingers and thumb together for silence and Sakura obeyed, still pinned to the floor by her brother's furious glare.  "This _thing_ will stay right here until your little friend Chiharu can come over to pick it up.  Meanwhile, I want you to go upstairs and listen to these."  In two long strides he crossed the room and started pulling CDs off the bookshelf.  "Eric Clapton.  Steppenwolf.  Scorpions.  And for a little taste of the past, Pink Floyd."

He pressed the stack into his sister's arms and numbly she accepted them, mouth open.

"I'll expect a full report on which songs moved you the most and why.  Pay particular attention to Scorpions' _Wind of Change_, it's about the fall of communism."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, this is a Peacewish fic.  Now go on, time's awasting."  He prodded her lightly in the direction of the stairs and she stumbled forward, still staring at her brother in disbelief.

"You are in_sane_."

"But I am also your guardian.  Get moving."

His tone left no room for argument.  With a despairing sigh she turned away and stomped up the stairs. 

"And I better hear it!"

The only response was a slam of her bedroom door.  Limp with relief that a disaster had been averted, Touya sank back into his chair and buried his face in his folded arms.  Ignored, the N'sync CD sat innocently on the table where he'd dropped it.  And Kero and Yuki exchanged cautious looks.

"Sometimes," Yukito whispered, "I think we're the most normal people in this house."

Kero snorted. 

"Only sometimes?"

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Doesn't it feel good to wallow in silly humor? 

I am the first to admit that we don't know anything about Touya's musical tastes, but come on.  He's got a very straightforward, direct personality and he obviously appreciates quality.  So why not?  Go read _Scattered Blossoms_, you'll see. 

And while we're on the subject, let me just mention that I hate the drug war.  Nowhere in our Constitution is there anything about the government prohibiting substances.  Except in the nineteenth one, which doesn't count because they repealed it three amendments later. 


	24. campfire

Topic: Cold Weather Cuddle  
Rating: PG for implications  
Length: 650  
Genre: fluffy, sorta  
Canon: post-anime  
The Challenge: Depict a scene of any number of characters _cuddling_, not necessarily as a romantic couple.  _(thank goodness, no)  
_Special Requirements: Must contain references to 1)marshmallows, 2)feathers, and 3)clouds.

Tease:  Li can rail against fate all he likes, but fate is hungry.

**'campfire'**

Like the sparks of the fire, furious anger exploded in Li and he leapt with a snarl.  His adversary was caught off guard and squawked as Li tackled him to the ground, wings flapping frantically.

"I knew it!  I _knew _ you'd find a way to ruin it somehow, I should have known better than to turn my back on you for five seconds.  Can't you leave anything alone, you stupid stuffed animal?"

Kero growled and pushed his paws against Li's chest, throwing him back roughly against the hard earth. 

"Watch yourself, kid, or I'll roast you along with the hot dogs!  How dare you attack me?"  He shook himself with a wounded sniff, trying to rid his golden coat of dirt.  Hardly had he done so when Li barrelled into him again.  Feathers scattered everywhere, a few of them drifting into the campfire. 

"Miserable creature.  You _promised_, you gave your word you wouldn't come!"

Claws sheathed, Kero mauled Li to the ground and pinned him there with one paw.

"Well yeah, but then I saw Sakura packing the marshmallows and knew there was gonna be s'mores.  How could I stay away?"

"Isn't there anything in there but a stomach?"  Li socked Kero hard on the jaw, eliciting a feline yelp, and took advantage of the distraction to drag him back to the dirt.  Interlocked, lion and human rolled across the earth and would have gone straight into the fire had Li not dug his boots into the ground for a halt.  With grim purpose his hands closed around Kero's furry throat.

"You hate me, don't you?  Just one night away, that's all I wanted.  Is it really so much?"

As if in agony the white feathers writhed in the flames, blackening and shriveling and adding an acrid odor to the cloud of woodsmoke.  Kero coughed and sputtered a bit before finally hacking up flames of his own, nearly catching Li's nose.  In startled reflex he pulled back and Kero threw him off, flattening him mercilessly into the ground.

"Oof!"

"Okay kid, what gives?  I always sneak along when you guys try to leave me behind, what's the big deal?  We all knew I was gonna do it." 

"You _promised_."

"Not before I knew about the s'mores.  C'mon, what's eating you?"

The fight had drained some of his anger; with a defeated groan Li rested his head back against the ground. 

"I just wanted to be alone with her.  For once."

"But you guys always do your homework together!"

"No."  Li glared bitterly up into the golden feline eyes, full of helpless frustration.  "I mean, alone for the night.  With some privacy.  Get it?"

Kero didn't seem to get it. 

"To be together," he added impatiently.  Something finally clicked, and Kero's puzzled expression smoothed out in understanding.

"Ohhhh.  That." 

"Yes.  That."

Kero cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable, and finally removed his heavy paw from Li's chest.  But Li couldn't be bothered to hit the creature again, and instead rolled over onto his side to stare at the fire in a resigned way.  The tense anticipation that had been building in his stomach all day was gone, and for the first time since they'd left the city Li drew a full breath. 

"You're not nervous about it, are you?" Kero asked, nailing his thoughts with surprising accuracy. 

"No," Li snapped automatically, and then added, "It's not your business anyway.  Go away." 

"And miss my chance to roast marshmallows under the night sky?"

"I despise you."

"Yeah, I know."  With a few contented grunts and sighs, Kero made himself comfortable behind Li and propped his muzzle on Li's shoulder.  "Kids.  You're kinda cute when you're about to grow up."

"So I've been told."  Li closed his eyes and relaxed against Kero's warm body, relieved in spite of himself, and that was the sight that greeted Sakura upon her return ten minutes later. 

There would be no growing up tonight.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

It fits in with an earlier challenge.  Can anybody name which?


	25. genesis

Challenge: Opposite Day

Genre: drama

Canon: pre-anime

Length:  1,500

Task:  Feature a character or write a particular genre that you've never done before.

Tease:  I've never featured this guy before.  So, here goes. 

**'genesis'**

The blood welled up, dark scarlet, and she watched it drip from his cut lip to the scuffed mat underneath.  It hurt her as deeply as it must have hurt him, but somehow she managed to stay back and say nothing.  After a moment to catch his breath, her son pushed himself back onto his feet and stood – injured but not beaten just yet. 

"You still want more?" his opponent sneered.  "Don't you know you can't beat me, half-breed?  You can't beat anyone." 

Her son's eyes flashed angrily and he rushed at the boy with a long kick, sloppily executed and easily seen.  The other fighter sidestepped it easily and struck her son squarely on the nose.  Even with the padded bandages wrapped around his knuckles it must have hurt, and her son hit the mat with a thud.  Under his hand she could the blood seeping, and when he didn't get up again the teacher dropped his hand.

"It is finished.  Xio is the victor." 

"Weakling half-breed," he scoffed, and took the chance to kick her son's inert body on his way back to the mat's edge.  Her son coughed and groaned, but the teacher said nothing.  Holding the sleeve of his loose training clothes to his bleeding nose, somehow he managed to crawl off the mat and collapsed gratefully on the grass.

"Hu, Ping," their teacher commanded, and the next pair of students scrambled to the center.  "Begin!"

And her son obeyed, though it was not noticeable at first.  Xio twitched uncomfortably, once or twice, then absentmindedly reached to scratch.  The fight continued, thrust and parry and strike, and Xio's discomfort grew.  His hands roved over his body a little faster, scratching harder, forgetting his surroundings.  Those students next to him eyed him curiously, then scooted a few inches away.  By the time one student finally flattened the other to the mats, Xio was in absolute agony.  Their teacher opened his mouth to announce the victor, but he was cut short by a tormented bellow.  Xio sprang to his feet and sprinted hard for the lily-bedecked pool, throwing himself in with a splash.  Astonished, the class could only stare at first.  And then, in the manner of boys everywhere, they all began to laugh. 

Everyone except the teacher, of course.  And her grimly smiling son.

- - - - - - -

Class was dismissed, all those except for the humiliated Xio, and her son stopped short when he saw her lurking in the gardens. 

"Mother.  How long have you been here?"

"Long enough," she answered coolly, communicating her displeasure, and he winced a little.   

"It was just a bit of fun.  He deserved it."

Before she could reprimand her son, someone else interrupted. 

"Half-breed!"  Her son's eyes narrowed and he turned his head sharply, scowling at his dripping classmate ten paces away.  Xio's face was scorched red with anger and embarrassment, his black eyes flashing.  "I know it was you, witchcraft student.  You think you're so clever, always hiding behind your books, but you are just a whelp of mixed blood, a mutt.  You don't belong in China." 

She saw her son's fists clench, felt the swell of power, and was afraid for the life of that boy. 

"Xio!" their teacher called sharply, right when she murmured her son's name.  "Come!  You have work to do."

The student glared nastily at her son before he whipped around and stalked away, anger obvious in the tense set of his muscles.  Her son relaxed, though righteous anger still lurked in his foreign blue eyes. 

"Come," she said softly.  "It's time to return home, you're injured." 

"I know."

Looking as if he didn't care to be reminded of it, he stomped past her and made for their family carriage.

The ride home was awkwardly silent.

- - - - - - -

"Ouch!"  Again he tried to wriggle out from under her grip, but with the determination of a mother she wiped at his cut lip.  "Stop it, it hurts!"

"It's the crushed marigold, it stings as it disinfects.  The pain will be gone soon." 

"I don't like that class, Mother, I don't want to go anymore."

"And will you always give up under the threat of a little pain?"

"It's not that," he huffed.  "I don't like the martial arts, fighting is no fun.  Books and spells are far more interesting.  Can't I just spend the afternoons in the library instead?"

"Between your morning lessons and nights spent glued to the telescope?  It's not healthy to stay cooped up in a room all day.  You need exercise."

"Getting kicked by witless rich sons is not exercise."

"Those witless rich sons are the children of China's leaders, and you should make an effort to get along with them."

"Why, to become a politician like Father?  What a waste of time.  I don't want anything to do with people when I grow up.  I'm going to be a great sorcerer."

She finished wiping at his blood and stepped back with a sigh.  "One day you will learn there is more to life than just magic.  And even great sorcerers need friends." 

"Well I _don't_."  Clearly fed up with this conversation, her son leapt to his feet and stormed out of the room.

- - - - - - - - - -

Every day she could see it, her control and influence over her headstrong son slipping away.  Already he'd surpassed her and his father in power, and he was finally beginning to catch on to that notion.  Her family watched him nervously, like a pack of wolves whose territory had been encroached upon by a young and strong newcomer.  His intellect seemed to have no limits; he'd devoured every book in their library and was already begging for the chance to study in England.  She had not agreed to send him there, yet, and it was not for the sake of maternal affection.  She knew her son would not fit in there anymore than he did here; the son of China and England would find a home in neither.  It was little wonder that he rejected people so impatiently.

Disquieted by her thoughts, she sank into the plush sofa alongside her husband and sighed.  Four o'clock, and all family activities were suspended for teatime.  None of that bitter black stuff either, he'd declared, all their tea came imported from India and was served with the proper milk and sugar.  It was his only weakness for home life, the British ambassador being in all other things quite adaptable to Chinese culture, and she indulged it with a patient smile. 

"He won't be joining us?" he asked, when the servant had left their tray and departed noiselessly.  She shook her head. 

"He is angry, and troubled."

"He is a teenage boy.  He'll grow out of it." 

How she wished she could be so sure.  "He is so strong, and only getting stronger.  I fear for him, and I also fear… what we've brought into the world.  Was it right, for us to create such a mixture?"

Milk swirled into his tea, lightening it, a shade neither brown nor white but something in between. 

"That's not a mixture, that's our son.  If he was born then he has a purpose, or so _my_ philosophy says.  Just because he's grown stronger doesn't mean he'll forget what we taught him.  His soul is a good one."

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Clow stomped across the grounds, lashing now and then at the hedges with a bamboo switch, angrily venting his frustration.  Mother would never understand, Father wouldn't either.  No one called them a half-breed, mocking the mixture of blood in their veins.  They didn't have the eyes of one world and hair of another, prompting strangers to stare and whisper.  They each had their home, a place to belong, but he had nowhere. 

Already exhausted from his ill-fated class, Clow flopped down on a sunny knoll to rest.  The sting of his injuries was already fading, just like Mother promised it would, but that didn't take away the burn of humiliation when Xio kicked him so roughly. 

"I hate people," he muttered.  Though that really wasn't true, he just wished they would leave him alone.  It wasn't his fault he'd been born of two races, an automatic outcast wherever he went.

And yet…

He closed his eyes, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sun overhead.  And yet he had a secret, something no one else knew about.  He didn't even know it himself, at first, but time and long hours of practice were proving his theory right.  A child of western and eastern magics, perhaps the first ever, was more than just a half-breed.  Clow's unique heritage had left him poised to conquer both, harnessing the better aspects of each and combining them.  The very idea was breathtaking and he'd shared it with no one, not even Mother.  Surely it was dangerous, but Clow wasn't afraid of that kind of danger.  And if he could succeed, if he could accomplish a true mixture, then he might very well become the most powerful sorcerer in all of China.  Or the world. 

A tiny sigh escaped his lips. 

Fanciful daydreams, perhaps, but he'd written every thought of it down, keeping a journal of his progress.  It might take years, but at least it was something to look forward to.  Who cared then if people despised him? 

Maybe one day he'd just make his own friends.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

I'm not sure why I've never been tempted to write for Clow, but now that I look back over this piece I think I've got an idea.  I love CCS, not for just a romance/fantasy series, but as a coming-of-age story.  Which is what it really is, when you consider how much of the plot was focused on Sakura's growing power.  Most of my favorite characters are the ones that evolved somehow over the course of the series, especially Li and Meilin.  And Clow, needless to say, is not one of those.

So instead of writing him as the Clow we all knew, the wise/mature/Yoda-like sorcerer that engineered practically everything in Sakura's world, I went back in time a little.  Even men like Clow were boys once, and we weren't born with the wisdom and maturity of adults (not counting Tomoyo Sue).  I've theorized before that Eriol has a paternal fondness for Li, perhaps because he reminds him of himself in his/Clow's younger years. 

I don't have any evidence for it, of course, but it's true Clow was a half-breed.  More than giving him the chance to combine magic, I wonder if his mixed blood made him inclined to retreat from people later on in life.  It would explain his reclusive estate and even maybe why he created Yue and Kero.


	26. carnival

Challenge: A Humorous Feast  
Genre: Well, humor!  And a pinch of fluffy romance.  
Canon: post-anime  
Rating: PG  
Words: 3,700

Take any combination of characters and place into any setting involving a feast or the preparation of said feast. Add liberal amounts of humor and wit. Intersperse two to three quotes from your favorite holiday book, movie or TV special into the mix, stirring well. Sprinkle with the inappropriate use of a kitchen implement. Share and enjoy!

Tease:  Aragorn and his evil ancestor embark on a harrowing quest for the one ring.

**'carnival'**

The snow had stopped.  In the rosy light of the setting sun it sparkled like sugar, coating the yards and roofs of a hundred cozy homes in white.  All errands complete, none of Tomoeda's inhabitants minded this.  In the chill of the midwinter evening, this last evening before the new year, there was no other task but to enjoy their holiday feasts and spend time with loved ones.

Li gripped Eriol's sweater in his fists and slammed him against the cupboards, eyes flashing with anger.

"I," he growled throatily, "am going to kill you."

Looking rather pale, Eriol pressed himself back against the wall and tried to pry Li's hands off.  "Now, Li-kun, don't get too upset -"

"Upset?  Up_set?_  For the first time in my life I actually trust you to help me and then you _lose _it and you think I'm _upset?_  I'm more than upset, I'm going to kill you.  I'm going to rip you apart." 

Eriol gulped, but before Li could carry through with his murderous intentions someone else entered the kitchen.

"Syaoran?" Sakura greeted uncertainly, eyeing the embraced pair.  "Everything okay?  You're not about to make any life-changing decisions, are you?"

Li quickly pushed himself clear of Eriol, covering up his scowl as best he could.  "Fine.  We were just… talking."

"Right," she drawled, eyes skeptical but not concerned enough to pursue it.  Instead she sidled around him and made for the oven, lifting a lid to inspect the steaming vegetables underneath.  "Well, the broccoli's coming along all right, at least.  I think it's just about time to turn the chickens around, don't you?"

"Sure," Li answered automatically, seizing Eriol in a vise-like grip and steering him to the hallway.  "Excuse us just a minute, be right back."

"Ouch," Eriol complained, when they were out of earshot, rubbing his shoulder with a wounded air.  "Li-kun, sometimes I don't think you quite know your own strength."

"Shut up, and pray."

"Li-kun," Eriol said placatingly, taking a hasty step back, "you're overreacting.  I know I had the ring when we got here, it's definitely somewhere in this house.  All we have to do is look."

Cautious hope flickered up within Li and he hesitated.  "You're sure it's here?"

"I'm sure.  And the house is only that big."

His words were reasonable.  Li exhaled and nodded.  "Okay.  We look, we find it, I won't disembowel you with the measuring spoons." 

"That's very kind of you, Li-kun." 

"Where did you last see it?"

- - - - - -

"Right here," Eriol announced, in the cluttered mess the Kinomotos' foyer had become.  Parkas and overcoats hung from any available hook, layered atop one another several thick, and the many shoes almost prevented access to the door.  Eriol picked his way through them and started pawing through the jackets.  "I was afraid something would happen to it if I left it with all this mess, so I made sure to take it out of my coat.  Only, I couldn't keep the box in my pocket, it was too big.  So I just took the ring."  He unearthed a small velvet box as he spoke and flipped it open, displaying the empty silk-lined interior. 

"And?" Li prompted tersely.

"And I put it in my pocket."  Eriol patted his hip pocket, empty, and shrugged.  Li's fingers itched for that throat, but at the sound of voices both of them whipped around, Eriol hastily hiding the box behind his back.

"Eriol-samaaa!"  In her typical boisterous nature Nakaru pounced on her master and hugged him enthusiastically, the slightly more restrained Yukito trailing in her wake.  "The snow finally stopped and Yukito-kun and I are going to make a snowman while it's still light!  Do you want to help, oh please?  You're so good at those things!" 

"More the merrier," Yukito added, his smile warm and inviting. 

"Nakaru, darling," Eriol wheezed, "I would simply love to make a snowman with you."  Li elbowed him roughly in the ribs and he grunted.  "But I have to help Li-kun with something right now.  I promise next time." 

"Oh…"  She pouted, briefly, then shrugged and reached for her jacket.  "Then be sure to come see it later!  It will be a triumph of moon guardian art!"

"I absolutely will," Eriol assured her.  He barely had time to stuff the ring box back into his coat pocket before Li grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the foyer, leaving the pair behind.  "Li-kun, really.  You're going to leave a bruise." 

"And I _really_ don't care.  Where did you go after you got here?"

"Um, the den.  I was hungry and there were snacks; I had some cheese and crackers."

"Right."  Scanning the hallway carpet with fierce concentration as he walked, Li herded Eriol down the short passage and into the gathering room.  A few crumb-bedecked platters gave evidence to snacks, though the food itself was long gone.  It was not at all difficult to guess how, either, with Kero slouched indolently on the couch cushions and rubbing his stuffed belly. 

"I really am handsome," he sighed, admiring his own image on the TV screen.  "With a tasty feast and videos of my own bravery to watch, this is a wonderful New Year's." 

Both men stopped short in the doorway and Tomoyo looked up from her task with a smile.  "There you are, Li-kun, I was wondering where you'd got to.  Are you sure you don't want to paint these, it's your specialty."  She indicated the rows of peach pastries with her frosting brush and Li shook his head quickly.

"No.  Fine, you're doing fine."

"That's good.  I had to come in here just to find some space, there isn't a inch left on the kitchen counters.  Can you believe it?"  She laughed lightly, missing Li's expression when she turned her attention back on the desserts.  Tomoyo was the most astute of all of them, she'd surely figure it out if he couldn't get rid of her. 

"Was Sakura okay in the kitchen?" he asked Eriol, abruptly, who shot him a surprised glance.  "I think she was confused about something," he added meaningfully, and Eriol nodded in understanding.

"That's right, something about the chickens, wasn't it?"

Tomoyo looked up again, concerned.  "Sakura-chan needs help?  Why didn't she call for me?  I told her to call for me!"  Anxiously she jumped to her feet and scurried out of the room, and both men dropped to their knees as soon as she was gone. 

"Keroberos, did you see a diamond ring in here, by any chance?"

"Or eat it?" Li muttered under his breath, peering into the shadows beneath the sofa.

"Nope."  Kero belched to indicate the depth of his interest and scratched his belly.  "Why, taking a survey?" 

For ten more seconds he stared mindlessly at the screen, and then comprehension finally struck.  Astonished black eyes lit upon Li. 

"You mean you're -"

Li held up a warning finger, eyes hard as stone.  "_One_ word to anyone and I will fry your Nintendo to a crisp."

Kero gasped.  "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"He would," Eriol chimed in.  "Li-kun's not having an easy day, Keroberos, so better go along with him on this one.  And please do keep an eye out for that ring."

"Hai hai," Kero muttered grudgingly.

It didn't seem to be anywhere in here, and Li knew Tomoyo would be returning soon. 

"Where to next?"

"Let me think… oh yes.  I took Spinel down to the basement, so he could browse the sensei's collection."

"Good.  Let's go."

- - - - - -

The basement was somewhat removed from the rest of the noisy household, a little quieter and a little cooler.  But not empty, as Li and Eriol discovered when they reached the bottom of the stairs and found Fujitaka chatting amiably with Spinel at his desk. 

"Oh, Li-kun, Hiiragizawa-kun, hello."  He nodded politely and adjusted his glasses, then checked his watch.  "It's not time for dinner yet, is it?"

"Uh," Li stuttered, "no, not yet.  I was- just…"  He stumbled and looked to Eriol for help.

"We were just thinking it might be chilly down here," he chimed in, and Li nodded rapidly. 

"Chilly, yes, aren't you cold?  It's very warm upstairs." 

"Oh, it's not that bad," the older man answered breezily.  "I spend so much time down here I'm used to it.  And Spinel and I are having a grand old time going through my ancient civilizations books.  He knows quite a lot." 

Damn it.  Li sighed, unable to help searching the floor around him with his eyes.  Surely even in the shadows those diamonds would be easy to spot. 

"Are you looking for something?" Spinel ventured curiously, and both Li and Eriol flinched. 

"Um, er -"

"My keys!" Eriol interjected.  "I can't find my keys, I thought I might have dropped them down here." 

"I haven't seen them."

"Well, we'll just look anyway.  Do you mind?"  Neither waited for an answer before they dropped to their knees, crawling across the cold floorboards and missing both Fujitaka's and Spinel's raised eyebrows.  But the basement yielded nothing, and at length they stood, discouraged. 

"They don't seem to be here," Li observed acidly, and Eriol cringed. 

"Don't worry, Li-kun, there's still plenty of places they could be.  I promise we'll find them."

"We'd better."  Li forced a smile onto his face before he faced the professor again.  "Dinner won't be long.  I'll be sure to come get you."

"Arigatou, Li-kun." 

- - - - - -

"Is it just me," Eriol inquired thoughtfully, back upstairs, "or does Kinomoto-sensei evoke a little nervousness on your part?"

"Shut up, Hiiragizawa, I'm not in the mood for one of your therapy sessions."

"Of course, what with intending to propose to his daughter and all -"  Li clapped a hand over Eriol's mouth, pressing him rather painfully against the stair railing. 

"This house is full of people.  No talking about it."

"Mmpf."

"What did you do when you left the basement?"  Li released his grip and Eriol tapped his chin in thought. 

"Ho hum, let's see.  Front hall, greetings, den, basement… then I came upstairs…" 

"Eriol?"  Both of them turned their faces up sharply at the address, but it was only Kaho descending the stairs.  She smiled drowsily at the both of them, then leaned forward over the banister to drop a quick kiss on Eriol's lips. 

"Hi punkin, how are you feeling?" 

_Punkin._  Nauseated, Li rolled his eyes and kept silent. 

"A hundred times better, thank you.  I thought I'd just go and see if Sakura-chan needed any help in the kitchen." 

"Very kind of you, pet, I'm sure she'd appreciate it.  I'll be right behind you." 

They shared another kiss, she nodded briefly to Li, and then disappeared around the passage corner. 

"Pet?" Li repeated sarcastically.  Eriol just grinned.

"Now I remember.  Kaho was feeling a little tired from the flight so I took her upstairs.  Sakura-san offered her bed for a nap."

And so they headed up to the next level, keeping a sharp eye on the carpeting under their feet, and entered Sakura's bedroom.  It was, thankfully, empty of occupants and right away Li dropped to his knees. 

"I don't see it anywhere," he announced, then raised his head to see Eriol combing Sakura's rumpled blankets.  "What are you looking in there for, you said Mizuki-sensei was the one taking the nap, right?"

"Well, yes."  Eriol smiled in that self-satisfied manner of his and shrugged.  "But with the privacy of the room and so on… we just couldn't help having a little fun first." 

Li almost choked.  "On Sakura's bed?  You _freak_."

"It was a long flight!"

"Gross." 

"Just a little making out, Li-kun, no harm done.  And it doesn't seem the ring fell out here."  He patted the blankets a final time and then pulled them smooth, shaking his head.  "After I left Kaho, I was rather in need of a smoke.  So I went upstairs to the upper balcony."

"Good grief," Li groaned, "were you _trying_ to ruin my life or what?"

"Can't be helped now, Li-kun.  Shall we?"

Looking far too undisturbed for someone who had the prospect of death hanging over his head, Eriol ushered him out of the room and up the second flight of stairs.  The attic was almost stuffy, collecting all the heat of the house, and the chill evening air outside came as a sharp contrast.  Li's mood was not improved by the sight of his cousin locked in a deep kiss with the gwei lo, and without speaking he pulled her away.

"Hey!" she squealed, before shaking her hair out of her eyes and recognizing him.  "Syao_ran_.  Don't you understand the concept of privacy?"

"Privacy would be when you do that on the other side of the ocean behind locked doors," he replied waspishly, "not when you're sucking face on the balcony for the whole world to see."

"No one else is out here and besides, we wanted to see the snow."  Meilin gestured to the frosted landscape, turning silver now that the sun had dipped below the horizon.  "It doesn't get cold enough in L.A. for this."

"Thought you hated the cold."

"But I have Eric to keep me warm."  She smirked, just a little, and Li clenched his fists.  The gwei lo smirked even more and leaned back against the balcony, lighting up a new cigarette.

"You look stressed," he observed, just before exhaling.  "You should take up smoking."

Something in Li smoldered and he momentarily wished that the other two weren't there.  He could probably convince everyone it was an accident…

Eriol was looking rather longingly at the vice in Eric's fingertips.  "Oh, I could really use one of those."

"Forget it," Li snapped, returning to his current crisis, "you are too busy."  There was no sign of the ring anywhere on the small balcony and, frustrating as it was, he just didn't have the time to threaten the gwei lo with murder.  Throwing one last scorching glare in his direction, which was met with smug blue eyes, he pushed Eriol back inside the house. 

His evil ancestor looked, of course, highly amused.  But he didn't tease Li, instead he snapped his fingers.

"That reminds me, Kinomoto-kun."

"What about him?"

"After I came back inside, I ran into Sakura-san and she asked me to help him roll the dough out for the pies."

And Li's world exploded, the house and everything else going up in a cloud of radioactive orange smoke.  Before he even realized he'd moved, he gripped Eriol's shirt and yanked him right off his feet. 

"Tell me you're kidding," Li demanded.  "_Please _tell me you're kidding."  Eriol smiled regretfully and shook his head.  "If Kinomoto finds that ring before we do I'm screwed.  I'll never see it again."  Another, bleaker thought occurred to him.  "Maybe he _already_  found it and it's all over."

"Li-kun, take a breath," Eriol advised, gently working himself free of Li's grip.  "All we have to do is go find him."

- - - - - -

They found him in the front living room, leaning against the window with a steaming mug of tea in his hand and a fond smile clinging to his lips, as he watched Yukito put the finishing touches on their snowman.  That smile disappeared when he turned his head and saw them, the familiar glare reasserting itself. 

"What do _you _want?"

With great effort Li curbed his own glare, knowing this would be tricky.  Simply asking was not an option, and the enemy was very smart. 

"Um, nothing," he finally answered, when Eriol poked him in the ribs.  "Happy new year." 

Touya stared at him blankly.  "Okay." 

Now what?  Helplessly Li looked at Eriol, who smiled gamely.

"Fascinating holiday, isn't it," he asked brightly, "the new year.  It's like a new beginning every year." 

What?  Eriol nudged him meaningfully, still talking.

"It's like a continuous circle, a -"

"Ring," they both finished, when Li grasped what Eriol was getting at.

Again, Touya only stared.  "What?"

Was he really that good?  Li's eyes lit on the scene outside and he tried again.  "Snow looks really pretty this evening, doesn't it?"

"Like diamonds," Eriol agreed, "all over the yard."

Baffled black eyes regarded first him and then his ancestor, obviously unsure what was going on but clearly not liking it. 

"You're bothering me," he finally said, when the silence had dragged on for a few seconds.  "Go away." 

There was only honest hostility in those eyes; Li recognized it well enough.  He caught Eriol's eye and shook his head, and the other nodded.  Both of them retreated to the hallway and out from under the brother's suspicious glare. 

- - - - - - -

"It's lost," Li moaned, banging his head against the wall and not bothering to remove it.  "I just know it.  Gone forever, it has to be an omen."

"Li-kun, it's not lost and it's not an omen.  I promise you it's somewhere in this house, we just need more time.  I can hunt up a searching spell and we can try again another day, when no one's here."

"But I don't want to ask her another day, I want to ask her _tonight._  I was ready to do it _tonight_.  New year, new beginnings, right before the clock struck midnight and we kissed.  That's when I wanted to do it!"

He waved his fist petulantly and Eriol looked mildly surprised.  "Li-kun, how romantic.  I didn't think you had it in you."

"Shut up.  What did you do after making the pies?"

"Nothing," Eriol answered, shrugging helplessly.  "That is, I'd just finished when you came in and asked to check on the ring."

They exchanged a horrified stare and bolted for the kitchen, bursting through the doorway just as Sakura was bending over before the oven. 

"NO!" they both cried, almost startling her into dropping the two pie pans. 

"What, what is it?"

"Don't put those in the oven," Eriol said urgently, striding forward at a pace identical to Li's.  Each of them plucked one from her hands, while she looked on in bewilderment. 

"But Eriol-kun, the chickens are done and we're about to eat.  I have to put them in now if they'll be ready by dessert." 

"I know, but -"

"But what?  You don't think I'll burn them, do you?  Why is everyone so convinced I need help making dinner, I've done everything right so far!"

She crossed her arms indignantly and Li draped an arm around her shoulders, steering her gently from the cluttered kitchen. 

"Sakura, Sakura.  I know you can handle yourself.  Hiiragizawa knows it too.  We just want you to relax, you shouldn't have to spend all of the holiday working to feed everyone else.  Don't you want to have some fun?"

"But -"

"But nothing.  Go watch videos with Daidouji and the plushie, we'll take care of everything in here.  I'll call you when dinner's ready."

She opened her mouth to protest again and Li silenced her with a kiss.  Even after so many years, spontaneous demonstrations of affection were rare for him and she was left blinking, obviously taken aback.

"Oh.  Well… okay.  If you really want to."

"Thank you.  Now go on." 

He turned her in the right direction and slapped her lightly on her behind.  That made her giggle, and she scampered down the hallway and around the corner. 

Finally.  Li returned to the kitchen to find Eriol poring over the pies, his expression rapt.   

"I remember putting my hands in my pockets to warm them, after coming in from the balcony," he mused aloud.  "The ring could have caught onto my pinky finger without me noticing, and then slipped off while I was in the middle of this."  He sniffed at one and pushed it away.  "Rhubarb, that's the one your brother-in-law did.  This apple one is mine."

Li wrinkled his nose at the term he'd applied to Kinomoto, but he didn't have time to worry about that right now.  Eriol was hunting through drawers, and after a minute came up with two spatulas. 

"Not exactly what they were meant for, I know, but these should do the trick.  All we have to do is peel back the upper crust long enough to hunt through the filling.  Here."  He pushed them into Li's hands and positioned the pie on the counter's corner, between them.  "Nice and steady, and the dough should stick together.  No one will notice." 

"You better hope this is it," Li muttered, feeling a little ridiculous.  The two of them were hovering over the dessert like a pair of surgeons, and he just prayed no one else would wander into the kitchen.  Carefully, with all the finesse he'd learned in his swordplay, Li levered the spatulas under the edge of the crust and lifted it up.  With a pair of forks Eriol went to work, combing through the pie filling as rapidly as he could. 

"A little more.  I can't get to the other side."

"It's going to fall apart, Hiiragizawa."

"Just a bit higher."

Starting to sweat a little, Li complied as best as he could.  He could see tiny tears appearing in the white dough, and wondered what kind of explanation he'd give if Sakura noticed. 

"Hiiragizawa…"

His evil ancestor looked up, grin spreading from ear to ear.  "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings."  Something metallic clinked and he held up a small object.  Tiny, circular, the platinum and diamonds obscured by gooey brown sugar, and unquestionably the most beautiful thing Li had ever seen.  Forgetting everything else, he uttered a cry of joy and dropped the spatulas, snatching it just to make sure it was real.  It was, and automatically he popped it into his mouth to clean off the sticky sweetness.  It was a miracle, a true holiday miracle and he even found himself embracing Eriol without complaint. 

They hugged and danced around in a circle, and then he had to see it again.  He extracted the now-clean ring from his mouth and rubbed it dry on his shirt, then held it up to see the diamonds sparkle in the light.  And that's when Sakura hurried through the doorway.

"What is it, what's the ma-"

She stopped short and Li froze.  Stunned, she stared first at him and then the glittering ring and then him again.  There was nothing else for it. 

He dropped to one knee. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

"Good grief."  - any Charlie Brown holiday special you care to name.

"Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings."  - Luke 2:10, the ultimate holiday story, and perhaps the only one better than Charlie Brown. 

I really wanted to work in "You'll shoot your eye out" but I just couldn't find a place.  Bummer.  And all my fave quotes from _The Ref_ and _Trains, Planes, and Automobiles_ were highly inappropriate.  And yes, I know I tripled the word cap but come on.  When the muse hits you, a writer has no choice.  I thought the idea was pretty cute and funny, and at least I satisfied the humor requirement.  Gotta love that Li/Eriol dynamic, and I even worked in a cameo for my recurring original character.  Now I just hope I can come up with another New Year's plot theme when the inevitable challenge rolls around in a few weeks. 

Carnival, for those unacquainted with it, is a holiday of French origin closely tied with Mardi Gras.  At parties, a large ring-shaped cake is presented, with a special 'prize' baked into one of the slices.  The lucky recipient, assuming no tooth damage, is the winner.  Hence the title of the fic, even if it was a pie and not a cake. 


	27. coffee stains

Topic:  Better wash that

Canon: post-anime

Genre: fluffy

Rating: G

Length: 100 words

Task:  Write a 100-word blurb about any character(s) in any situation you like.  Only catch is, it must contain the phrase "you'd better wash that."

Tease: Another twist in store for my favorite pair.

**'coffee stains'**

It was just as before, the first time he'd heard those words so many years ago.  Both times he'd started violently, and both times he'd managed to spill hot coffee all over himself.  Both times he could only stare, stunned.

"You'd better wash that," Maki advised, hurriedly patting his tie with a napkin.

"Are you sure?" he whispered. 

"I'm sure, Fuji."  Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she was also glowing.  "And I know you didn't expect this, I'll understand if you don't want any part of it, but I want to be a mother.  I will have this baby."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

So that's three now, Fuji?  And at your age!  Or is it four?  (Don't forget my Tomoyo theory.)  And while the news might precipitate a heart attack on his part, I think Maki would love to have a baby and would make a great mother.  No more stalling though, it's definitely time to tell his kids the truth.  Look for it in future challenges, someday.  (Why am I too lazy to actually write this story?)


	28. eye of the storm

**Topic:** Lively, living fantasies  
**Genre:** action/contemplative (bet those have never been combined before)  
**Canon:** post-anime  
**Rating:** G  
**Length:** 400 words

**Special requirements:** Write a story where at least one of the Cards is a main character. Not an important instrument, or even a key plot point, but an actual _character_. Bonus points if you can write it from its point of view.

**Tease: **My usual guy from a rather unusual viewpoint.

**'eye of the storm'**

_A simple breeze begins it.  His hair lifts off his brow and I play with it, just for a moment.  Silent and still as a rock, he doesn't react.  But I know he knows I'm here._

_The sky cracks with thunder and I explode, a fury of wind and rain in the darkness.  In the same moment he darts to the side, invisible and noiseless under my cover.  The enemy hunts him, but he is unafraid.  He'll fight them, he's ready for it.  _

He is my master, and I love him.  I don't care what the others say, don't care that he lost to the Moon and that she is the one that I answer to now.  He's always been my master, since that night he stepped forward to confront me, rode my fierce winds and fought me to the ground.  He defeated me and marked me as his own.  I became his, and I am his still. 

_My white fire streaks across the sky, reflected for just a heartbeat as he draws his blade.  He is there and then he is gone, disappeared into the shadows. _

He's strong, not like Master or the Master Before but ferocious, a snarling creature of the night who would fight to his death.  I feared him at first, but only at first, then admired him and then loved him.  We're kindred spirits, the two of us, I can see the storm in his eyes.  Dark as the clouded sky, violent as thunder, merciless like the lightning.  Surrounded by my screaming winds and frantic rain he's in his element.  

_He crouches and then scrambles behind cover, circling warily, waiting for a chance to pounce._

I love him most like this, when he's abandoned all other thoughts and become the warrior that battled me.  He is the untamable storm and I am here to fight with him.  Nothing could keep me from this.

_This time the lightning is reflected in his eyes._

I would do anything for him, would tell him if only I could speak his language.  He is my master, and I love him.

_He attacks._

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

No, I really don't own him.  It's just a long-term leasing arrangement. 

Li's personality seems well-suited to Storm, at least how I see it.  Particularly when he's in that Kick-Ass mode that I'm so fond of writing.  I was on my way to aerobics class after reading the challenge prompt and one of those howling Thai monsoons struck, and I took it as a sign.  That and the Evanescence blaring out of my headphones pretty much took care of the imagery.  Yeah, and it fits it in with a couple of my past challenges.

Since the Mirror Card outright said that most Cards couldn't speak to Sakura, I assume they're unable to communicate in language as we know it.  They might still develop affection and have personalities, but Storm is one of those that can't speak and so can't talk to Li directly.  I hope I still fulfilled the requirement of treating her like a character, even if she wasn't in her true form.  We never saw it in the first place, after all. 

This post marks the big 3-0 in my personal Tsukimine challenge repertoire.  That means I've written one of these every week for more than seven months.  I have no life!  Go me! 


	29. something borrowed

Topic: Music

Genre: Romantic

Canon: pre-anime

Length: 620

Rating: G

Task:  Don't worry, it's not a songfic.  You only have to feature music in some way.

**'something borrowed'**

This wasn't the wedding she dreamed of, as a little girl.  He didn't even have to ask that, it was obvious.  There was no shrine filled with cooing relatives, no silk kimono for the ceremony, nor lavish western-style bridal dress for the nonexistent ritzy reception that didn't follow.  No invitations, no gifts, no speeches, no toasts.  If there was anything 'old' then it was him, and not even her dress was new.  Pale and filmy, rippling in the breeze, she'd worn it just once for some banquet of her father's company.  Nothing borrowed, nothing blue.

She didn't care.  The sparkle in her eyes matched any bride's glittering jewelry, the breeze tossed and played with her hair like it would for any lacy veil.  It was spring, that much she'd always dreamed of, and the sakuras scattered over them both like a crowd of wellwishers throwing flowers.  Their only shrine was this tree, the same tree where they'd met.  Their only witness was the relative stranger hired to do the deed. 

He cleared his throat, a little uncomfortable.  "There will be no one else?"

Her smile faded, just for a moment, and Fujitaka quickly shook his head.  No family, no grandfather, not even a cousin who'd muttered she _might _come.  It was not the wedding she'd dreamed of as a child.

"It's all right," she murmured when she saw his expression, her voice soft as a sigh.  The wind carried it away like the cherry blossoms.  "This is all right, it's what I want.  You're what I want." 

Another gust caught her hair, blowing it about and half-obscuring her.  She was like an angel in her beauty, as close to perfection as anything mortal could be.  One touch, and she'd disappear. 

"Still…"  She turned her face, gazing off into some childhood fantasy.  "I do wish we could have a little music.  Seems wrong to have a wedding without it."

He could have smacked himself.  How could he be so absentminded?

"Hold that thought.  I can't believe I almost forgot!"

She blinked, green eyes round with question marks.  He dove into his briefcase and unearthed the handheld tape player, wearing a sheepish grin. 

"A tape, I made of your organ music," he explained.  "The song was so pretty, and I thought we could play it today."

When the surprise had sunk in, her eyes lit up in the way only hers could.  "You're so wonderful!  It's a perfect idea.  I -"  She cut herself short, and giggled self-consciously.  He grinned, knowing perfectly well what she was about to say.  But those words were best saved for the ceremony. 

"Here we go."  He pushed Play, and turned the volume up as far as it would go.  No, the sound quality wasn't wonderful, but who needed that when the music was?  Rich and soft as the endless sakuras swirling around them, it filled the silence made by missing family and friends. 

"Could you hold it, please?" Fujitaka requested courteously, and the nonplussed stranger tried to juggle the tape player with his book. 

"Shall we begin?"

"Oh yes, please."

Music, springtime, a love promised forever and ever.  Maybe it was the wedding she'd always dreamed of. 

_Don't touch._

The solemn words began, the ceremony that would unite them.  This was it, the beginning of something beautiful.

_Don't touch._

He reached forward to clasp his hands with hers.  And he could almost touch her, almost felt the warmth of her skin on his hands before she slipped away with the petals and disappeared. 

His hand met Maki's, instead, covering the old unlabeled tape she'd just found in the back of the cassette rack.  He'd promised her a dance, and they needed romantic music.

"Perhaps… not that one."

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Disclaimer:  I do not own these characters


	30. three things

Topic: Missing  
Genre: Drama  
Canon: By definition, no.  
Rating: PG  
Length: 1,700

Special Requirements: Rewrite any part of the canon, minus one main character.  The story should assume that the person picked had never existed.  
Tease:  I flipped a coin and made Li the captor last time.  Now it's Touya's turn.

**'three things'**

Running fast and hard, one of the forwards snagged the ball and propelled it across the field, closing in on the net.  But before he could get there a fullback intercepted him, stealing the black and white prize out from under his feet and kicking it back where it came from.  Instantly the scrimmage teams scattered to new positions while the respective forwards swept in for battle.

Keeping one eye on the game, Touya leaned back against the chainlink fence and lit a cigarette.  The day was a fine, clear one, with a blue sky and fresh spring breeze that kept the football players cool and whisked the thin gray smoke up and away from him.  Plenty of people were eating or studying outside, thanks to the weather, but way over here by the elementary school fence nobody would notice him. 

Almost nobody, anyway.  Yukito covered the distance between them at a fast walk, panting a little under his usual loaded lunch bag.  "Toya, there you are.  Didn't you want to eat your lunch?  You left it behind in the classroom!"

To Yuki, there was no greater sin, and Touya rolled his eyes.  "Sorry.  This was more important than food." 

Yuki looked scandalized, and handed Touya his lunch with a shake of the head.  "You shouldn't, Toya.  You know if the teachers catch you one more time it could mean suspension."

"I'll have to miss school?  How tragic." 

"But then who will I eat lunch with?" Yuki responded pertly.  "Besides, you can imagine how your father would react.  You don't want to risk another big fight, do you?"  He was unwrapping his sandwich as he spoke but Touya made no move for his own lunch, intent on finishing this smoke first.

"Too late." 

"What?  What happened?"

"Dad got a call from my counselor at work yesterday."  Touya scowled at the football game and tapped a few ashes loose.  "My lit teacher asked her to call because, apparently, I'm about to fail the stupid class."

"Uh-oh.  That must have been unpleasant."

"To put it mildly."  Evenings like that were always the same: angry father, angry son, uneaten dinner and slammed doors.  But to Touya they were better than the alternative, the awkward and silent evenings when their tiny family ate in false peace.  The only days that were really good, in his opinion, were the ones that his father spent away on some excavation site and left him alone in their apartment.

"So your lit grade is in trouble?" Yuki pressed, interrupting his thoughts.  "What are you going to do?"

Touya opened his mouth to reply, but before he could someone called his name.

"Touya-san!  Yukito-san!" 

"Oh no," he groaned.

"Toya, don't be nasty.  You'll hurt her feelings."

"Why does she have to follow me around all the time, though?"

"Because she's got a crush on you.  So be nice."  Yukito directed a welcoming smile to the little girl skipping to join them, barred only by the fence.  "Konichiwa, Tomoyo-chan."

"Konichiwa, Yukito-san, Touya-san."  Her sparkling eyes moved right past Yukito to his sullen companion, whose dark expression did nothing to diminish her smile.  "I'm so glad I saw you, I made cookies last night!  Will you please have some?"

Yukito nudged him and Touya sighed, dropping the cigarette into the grass and stamping on it.  "Sure thing."

"Wonderful!  I made peanut butter – that's your favorite, right?"

"It is," Yukito supplied, saving him from reply.  "And one of mine, too."  In a trice he packed up his lunch again and scrambled over the fence, and grudgingly Touya followed. 

"Ano, Touya-san, my mother just gave me a new videocamera.  If I bring it to school, will you let me tape you?"

"Um…"  Over her head he caught Yuki's warning eye, and subsided.  "Sure.  Whatever."

"Yay!"

- - - - - - -

"I really don't understand you, Toya," Yuki chided, though softly, in the muffled quiet of the library.  "I know she's only ten, but most guys would love it if a girl followed them around and baked them cookies.  I know I would.  Why does it bother you so much?"

Touya shrugged, running one eye over a shelf of books in search of a particular title.  "She's an okay kid, but she's deluded.  If she knew what a jerk I was she'd probably run screaming every time she saw me.  It's not here, what the next title?"

"_Utopia_, Thomas Moore.  And you're not a jerk, Toya.  At least she looks up to you, that has to feel nice, right?"

Touya trailed a fingertip over the row of dusty books, not really seeing their titles.  Yes, she did admire him; a refreshing change of pace from his father and the rest of the world.  She and Yukito both, they were two of the only three things on this earth that made Touya feel like he was something more.  But something about Tomoyo's adoring and innocent smile made his heart ache. 

"Tomoyo… she's about the same age my sister would have been.  If she'd been born." 

Yukito's eyes rounded in shock, horrified.  "Oh… Toya.  I'm sorry." 

"Don't be.  It's not your fault."  _Utopia_ was nowhere to be seen.  "What's the next book?"

"Toya -"

"Forget about it, I don't know why I said that.  Just thinking out loud, I guess."  Yukito opened his mouth again and Touya shot him a warning look of his own, effectively killing the conversation.  She'd never been born, never even become a real person, still too undeveloped when his mother suffered a relapse and died at just five months.  Touya felt strange thinking about her, a girl that never really existed, and turned his concentration back on the assignment at hand.  A decent score on this book report would save his lit grade, but it was due on Friday and that meant he had to find the book today. 

"The only one left is _The Sound and the Fury_," Yuki finally offered, still looking a little uncomfortable.  "William Faulkner.  Let's hope they have it."

"Faulkner… Faulkner…"  They wandered further down the aisle, examining the shelves, and it was Touya that first spotted it.  Someone had left it propped face-forward on the rack, and he could see the cover.  Strange-looking woman, he thought, and reached for it.  But at that moment someone turned the corner and collided with Yuki, almost knocking him over.  He stumbled back with a muffled grunt of pain, and his books crashed to the floor.  Immediately Touya whipped around, adrenaline crackling in his blood.

"Hey!  Watch where you're going!"

The student that had bumped into Yukito looked a little out-of-sorts himself, but at Touya's sharp words he bristled.

"Oh I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?"  Touya's temper flared at the sight of that nasty smirk, and his fists clenched in readiness.  Who was he?  Captain of the basketball team, or maybe wrestling – he never bothered to learn their names. 

"You got a problem?"

"Toya," Yuki whispered urgently, kneeling and gathering his books, "leave it alone.  I'm fine."

"No problem.  I just think that if you and your pansy boyfriend want to do it you should go somewhere private, you know?" 

Touya caught him across the jaw with a sharp left hook, one that nearly knocked him into the shelves. 

"Toya!"

"Say that again?" Touya challenged, and easily sidestepped the wild left punch thrown at his face.  He took the chance to knee him hard in the gut, eliciting a groan, and stepped back, ready for more.  His body was tingling with the promise of a fight, but then another sort of tingle ran down his spine and Touya hesitated.  A library was always quiet but now an unreal hush smothered them, silencing them.  His opponent glowered at him and spat something, probably more fighting words, but Touya could hear nothing.  Yuki's lips were moving, he was talking, but there was no sound.  Not sure why, his eyes were drawn to the waiting book and its forbidding cover.  Frigid with disapproval, the cloaked woman moved her finger to her lips. 

And then a hard punch knocked him to the floor.  The sudden impact snapped him back into reality; there was sound again.  Yuki was kneeling at his side, visibly anxious.

"Toya, are you okay?" 

His jaw throbbed and his entire head was ringing, but at least he could hear.  Dazed, he tried to sit up.

"What's going on here?"  The dowdy librarian marched around the corner, on the hunt.  "I heard an awful racket – were you boys fighting?"

"No!" Yukito denied quickly, before either of the other two could speak.  "No, I tripped and then Toya tripped over me and it was just a big mess.  That's all.  Sorry if we were noisy."  He bowed his head contritely and the librarian softened, wooed just like the rest of their teachers whenever subjected to Yuki's melting smile.

"Oh.  Well, try to be considerate; there are other students here too, after all."

"Yes, ma'am." 

Yuki helped Touya up, books under one arm, and dragged him away before Touya could even protest.  The whatever captain watched them go, smirking, and Touya just managed to throw him a scorching glare before Yuki pulled him around the corner and then out of the library.

"Toya!  Why do you always have to get yourself into those silly fights?  There wasn't any need to yell, it was an accident!"

"I didn't like what he said about you." 

"I don't pay any attention and you shouldn't either."  On a bench Yuki took Touya's chin and turned him one way and then another, examining him.  "That looked like a pretty hard hit, are you all right?"

"-m fine."  It hurt, but Touya was more worried about bruising.  If his father noticed…

"It's not like you to get hurt so badly, Toya.  I thought you looked a little distracted right when he punched you." 

"I was.  You didn't see it?"

"See what?" 

"The book- or the cover picture anyway.  It moved."

Yuki eyed him skeptically.  "The book moved?"

"No, the woman did.  She put her finger over her lips like this."  Touya demonstrated.  "Like she was saying… 'be quiet'.  And then I couldn't hear anything – like she took away all the sound.  It felt like…"

"Oh."  Yuki nodded in understanding.  "A Clow Card?"

"I think so."

"So, tonight?"

Touya nodded, carefully, trying not to wince.  "I'll get Kero and meet you here about ten."

"Better yet, let's meet for ice cream first!  After dinner, about nine?"

Another duel of the appetites between his best friend and the flying plushie, swell.  But Touya nodded, with what could almost be a smile.

"Nine o'clock.  We'll meet you there."

It was the third of the three things that made Touya feel like he was something more. 

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

A little darker than the last one, but I guess I'm in one of those moods.  When I pictured Sakura gone I wondered what sort of changes that would bring out in Touya's personality – as anyone who is an older sibling can tell you, it's a big part of who you are.  With no little sister to watch over he's not so straight-laced, and with his mother gone he's still full of angry hurt.  Most of this is directed to the world around him, in particular his poor father. 

Now I'm told by manga readers that they enjoy a much more amiable relationship there, but I'm an anime-only girl and in the show they hardly ever even talk.  Both of them interact with Sakura but almost never with each other.  In a family where Nadeshiko and Sakura are both gone, and Touya so ready to lash out, things could get pretty tense.  In fact, I suspect he blames his father for getting his wife pregnant when she was already so weak. 

So how would this work long term?  Dunno.  I don't know how Kaho would fit into the story now, or Li or Eriol, though they'd all have their parts to play.  I don't know what this would mean for Yue when he starts to fade, because as the cardcaptor Touya really needs his magic.  Nor do I know about Tomoyo, except that with Sakura gone (and she fatherless anyway) it just seemed natural to have her idolize Touya instead.  I set her and Yuki up on a parallel, as the two people that make him feel good about himself, just because I think it would eventually become an interesting contest.  Whether Touya ends up with her or Yuki is up to you.  (Stop waving your arm and sit down, L-chan)


	31. with a capital T

Topic: First Impressions  
Genre: from angst to humor, if that's possible

Canon: season 3  
Rating: G  
Length: 400

Special requirements: Similar to but not exactly like the Introductions challenge, show a character's reaction to meeting or observing another for the first time. Must be in First Person POV, and must include reference to all five senses.

**'with a capital T'**

It's all too familiar.  The dry odor of chalk dust, the stale air in the classroom, the noisy scraping of chairs as students settle back into their old seats.  I shouldn't be here today, I shouldn't have stayed this long.  This place has nothing for me now.

I lost.  I can admit it, my teacher taught me long ago that even the strongest warriors admit defeat with dignity.  I lost and that means I'll train harder, study more, get better.  Not whine.  Japan is simply a failure, and now it's time to go home.  I'll go back to where I belong and leave you where you belong – in my past. 

The sensei's voice swirls around me without meaning, I'm not listening.  No more keeping up with Japanese, thankfully.  No more cold winter days, no more bitter wasabi, no more cherry blossoms.  This place isn't my home, I want to go.  I don't want to look at you every day, it's _bothering_ me.  I'll go, and you'll just be a memory.  My rival.  My failure.  It's the only way I want to know you.   

Then the door slides open one more time, and in walks Trouble.  I can sense it, I feel a prickle of suspicion run down my spine when I see him.  A warrior's instinct, call it, even though it seems I'm not one just yet.  Something about that smile, it reminds me of someone.  And can't you see that calculating look in his eyes?  I don't like him already. 

He's introducing himself.  "… a pleasure to meet you all."

I don't like the way he says that.  I don't like the way the sensei put him back here in our corner, and I don't like the way he's walking here.  I definitely don't like the way he looks at you.  Chewing wrathfully on the end of my pencil, I only vaguely notice the nasty rubber taste and blame that on Trouble too.

What the – he's stopping?  Why is he talking to you? 

"Nice to meet you."

What kind of a stupid line is that?  And why are you staring at him?  You look so… interested.  You're staring at each other, and it's like you're the only two people in the room.  What's going on?

In my hand, the pencil snaps.

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Disclaimer: I don't own these guys. 

I always felt the most obvious similarity between Eriol and Kaho was their wickedly secretive smile.  Clearly it's a smile that rubs Li the wrong way. 


	32. sweet reward

Challenge: Waiting

Canon: anime  
Genre: humor, supposedly

Rating: G  
Words: 100  
Stipulations: Any character, waiting for anything.

Tease:  Faithful in his duty he is, but patience will never be his strength.

**'sweet reward'**

It was like time had ceased to exist.  There was no forward motion, no change, no sign of the promises made long long ago.  An age had passed since then.  Thick and slow as clotted honey, time smothered Kero and trapped him.  All alone in his torture, he wanted to cry.  Would someone not open it and put his lonely misery to an end?

Waiting inside the book was nothing compared to this.

The oven pinged, and Sakura pranced into the kitchen.  "All done!"

"Yay!"

"Now we just have to wait for it to cool!"

"… What?"

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Disclaimer:  Don't own 'em.

I haven't put up a challenge in a month, and this is what I come up with?

Blame Tomoeda Drama. 


	33. territory

Topic: Silk Purses

Genre:  Action

Canon:  AU

Length:  2,590

Rating:  PG-13 (for now)

Task:  From the deepest darkest depths of , choose that cliché that you hate the most… and write it.  Princess Sakura, skater boi Syaoran, whatever suits your fancy.  I want you to have fun with it, but it's no parody – write it _well_.  Prove you're that good. 

Tease:  A foolish and unsuspecting girl wanders into dangerous…

**'territory'**

"Akane-chan," Sakura cooed, bent over almost double to see under the low table, "I seeee you."

An impish giggle was her only response before the toddler squirmed behind a giant teddy bear, one patched and worn in its age. 

"Are we playing hide-and-seek?  Ready or not, here I come!"  Getting into the spirit of the thing, Sakura dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under the table, tripping a little on her pleated skirt.  "And… boo!"  She pounced on the bear with a big smile and Akane shrieked in delight, just before Sakura assaulted her with tickles. 

"Sakura-san?"  The director had appeared in the playroom doorway and smiled at the scene: Sakura and Akane wrestling playfully and all the other children happily involved in various games.  "Oh, sorry to interrupt, but it's seven o'clock.  Dinner time." 

"Awww," complained everyone in unison, Sakura included. 

"No fussing, kids, your mothers are waiting for you.  Go on, scoot, scoot."  Reluctantly Sakura stood and assisted her in shooing the children out of the playroom.  Akane squeezed Sakura extra tight around the legs one last time.

"You come back tomorrow?" 

"Not tomorrow, Akane-chan.  But the day after that, okay?"

The little girl's face fell, and Sakura tugged reassuringly on a pigtail.  "I know, when I go home I'll hunt through my attic and try to find my old dolls.  Then you can play with them on Friday, how's that?"

Pure worship lit up her chubby little face.  "Really?"

"It's a promise.  Now go on and eat some dinner."

"-kay!"

She scampered after the other children, under Sakura's indulgent smile.  "She's so cute.  I wish I had a little sister just like her." 

"And I'm sure she wishes she had a big sister just like you," Midori-san commented.  "They just love it when you come to visit, Sakura-san, you have such a way with children."

Sakura blushed lightly.  "I like to play with them, that's all."

"It's enough.  It gives them something to look forward to and the mothers a chance for a little rest, I wish we had more volunteers like you.  Sorry that I have to cut your time short."

"Oh, it's okay."  They'd been wandering up the narrow hallway as they spoke, and finally reached the front office.  Sakura collected her textbooks and purse, hugging them to her chest.  "I'm sorry to have to go, but I have a monster of a test to study for tonight.  Assuming I live, I'll see you again on Friday."

"I look forward to it.  Ja ne."

"Ja ne!"

Sakura waved and pushed the door open, exiting the drab and nameless building.  The Women's Shelter was a gathering place for abused wives and their children from all over the city, but it took pains to remain visually inconspicuous.  Angry husbands and dangerous boyfriends were always a possible threat, and so there was no sign announcing its presence, no address listed in the phone book.  It scared Sakura at first, especially given its location in one of the nastiest neighborhoods in all of downtown, but she loved playing with the kids and now she couldn't bring herself to stay away. 

The curb was bare, no car in sight.  Sakura waited a while, mentally running over the study tasks waiting for her, but when fifteen minutes had passed she pulled out her phone. 

Hardly glancing at the screen, she flipped down the menu to the number listings and selected her brother's name.  It rang twice before he answered. 

"Sakura?  Where are you?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing.  You know perfectly well where I am, Nii-chan, I'm waiting in front of the women's shelter for you to pick me up.  It's seven-twenty already, what's wrong?"

"Damn it," he muttered, clearly annoyed.  "I didn't realize it was that late.  The stupid battery died again, I'm waiting at the shop for a new one."

"What?  But I have a test to study for tonight!  How long will it take?"

"I don't know, there's only one mechanic here and I'm waiting in line.  Maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes."

"I can't wait that long.  I'll take the bus."

"NO!" her brother shouted, so loudly she flinched.  "Don't you put one foot outside in that neighborhood, I've told you that before.  Wait inside the office, I'll be there in no time."

"Nii-chan, I told you, I can't.  I have a history exam to go over and all my review worksheets are at home.  You don't want me to fail, do you?"

Again her brother swore.  "This is why I didn't want you going down there in the first place."

"Please don't start that again, I told you I like it and I'm not going to stop.  It's all in your head anyway, the streets in downtown are really quiet." 

"That's because the gangs killed everyone."

"Nii-chan!  I don't have time for this… tell you what.  I'll call Tomoyo-chan.  She'll come and pick me up, and that way you don't have to worry.  Okay?"

Her brother wavered.  "All right.  But don't move one step away from the shelter until she comes, and I want you to come right home.  No stopping for ice cream or anything."

"I won't.  I told you I have a test.  I'm hanging up now, I'll see you in a little while."

"But -"

She pressed the End button, cutting off her brother's final admonition.  Whatever it was, she knew it by heart.  Again she flipped through the menu until she found Tomoyo's number, and hit Send.  This time the phone rang four or five times.

"This is Daidouji Tomoyo," her friend answered pleasantly.

"Tomoyo-chan?  Sakura des, I - "

" - and I'm afraid I can't answer my phone just now.  Please leave a message and I will call you back."

Damn!  Sakura stared at the phone and pressed End in frustration, knowing what little good it would do to leave a message.  Tomoyo was in her class and had no doubt turned her phone off for the night so that she wouldn't be interrupted when studying.  Now what?

Doubtfully Sakura scrolled through the many names on her phone's listing.  She had a lot of friends in her school, but other than Tomoyo none of them were close enough to ask a big favor like this.  This street was a considerable distance from their suburb, and everyone would be busy studying anyway.  Like she ought to be doing.  Swallowing an irritated groan, Sakura looked from the glass door behind her to the empty street.

It was all just so stupid, especially since she could see the bus stop down at the far end of the road.  If a bus came along quickly enough, she could catch it to the metro station and be on her way to the suburbs in twenty minutes – her home was just a few blocks from the skytrain stop.  An inconvenience, but still better than waiting for her brother. 

Determinedly Sakura started walking.  She was the only thing that moved; faceless and nameless buildings stared at her blankly as she passed, deep shadows between them that the dim streetlights above did not penetrate.  Everything was filthy, old, and ugly, even the cracked pavement underneath her feet.  Trash that had spilled over an unemptied garbage can covered most of the sidewalk, and she had to pick her way through the mess.

Why were there places like this?  Did no one use them anymore?  Sakura had been to the trendy streets of downtown with Tomoyo and thought it impossible that neighborhoods like that and neighborhoods like this could actually belong to the same city.  This place was like the hard-to-reach shelf in the back of her closet: forgotten, filthy, left alone to decay without anyone giving it a thought. 

The bus stop turned out to be a delapidated structure with most of its sheltering overhang fallen in.  Dank rainwater had collected in the plastic seats, and Sakura could consider her school uniform ruined forever if she tried to sit.  Sighing, she leaned against the sturdiest-looking post and waited. 

And waited. 

Ten minutes passed without any sign of a bus, and Sakura started to worry.  If this took too long then she wouldn't make it home before her brother, and then there would be plenty of explanations demanded as to why she'd walked home instead of alighting from Tomoyo's car.  The posted timetable was grimy and difficult to read, but it did say there should be a seven-thirty bus.  So where was it?

Sakura perked up at the sound of an engine, but it was a false hope.  It was no bus, not even a car.  A motorcycle, gleaming black under the fitful glow of streetlamps, had turned the corner and was speeding past the bus stop when – quite unexpectedly – it turned a sharp arc and pulled up to the curb. 

Sakura's heart stopped.  Did he stop just because he'd seen her, waiting alone on this deserted street?  The driver killed the engine and stripped off his helmet, shaking ragged brown bangs out of his eyes, then looked right at her.  Frozenly Sakura returned the look, too scared stiff to consider anything like a polite smile.  Dozens of imagined horrors, all the things she'd seen on the news and all her brother's dark warnings, tumbled through her mind in less than a second.  Gang wars, rapings, stabbings, girls that disappeared and were never heard from again.  Was she already one of them?

The silence that descended when he turned the key could have crushed Sakura, thick and ominous.  But the new arrival said nothing, did nothing except to turn in his seat so that his feet were braced against the curb and he was leaning comfortably against his bike.  In what seemed a deliberately casual manner, he produced a cigarette and lit it. 

And then he looked at her again, the tip of his smoke glowing orange in the thick twilight.  Against her will Sakura swallowed, trapped where she stood by his cool and calculating gaze.  Smoke slipped out from between his lips in exhalation, disintegrating into the night, and she could smell the stale odor.  Afraid to utter a sound, she smothered a cough in her throat.

Still he stared.  Minutes ticked by in the bizarre quiet, the strangest minutes of Sakura's life.  Not once did he speak, or make any kind of sound at all, or even move except to tap the loose ashes from his cigarette.  She could almost believe he hadn't noticed her at all, that he'd spontaneously decided to pull over and have a smoke without even seeing her, were it not for the way he watched her.  His eyes never left her, studying her, almost as if he was sizing her up.  And she could do nothing but watch him in return.

The cigarette finished, it dropped to the pavement with a flurry of orange sparks. 

"You do not belong here."

She almost jumped at the sound of his voice, and fumbled for an answer. 

"Oh?  Who says?"

Her head whipped around so fast her neck hurt.  Almost directly behind her another teenaged boy was lounging indolently against a weathered old building, near the corner.  He was dressed like the first, in ragged jeans and a leather jacket, and he took a last drag on his cigarette before flicking it away. 

They must have been staring at each other the whole time.

"You know who I am," the biker answered coolly, and the one leaning against the wall smirked. 

"I do.  And what an honor, to finally meet the famous Li Syaoran.  Gotta say though, you're a little shorter than I expected."

The one called Li stood up, meandering a few careful steps closer.  Sakura had the feeling that she should back away – or even better, run – but the bus stop post had become her only security.  She couldn't leave it.  Stiffly she edged around behind it as the two young men drew closer, not more than six steps from where she stood. 

"This is not your territory," Li stated, his tone still measured but edged with menace.  "You don't belong here.  Get out." 

"I don't know, Li, I think I like it here.  I think I want it to be my territory.  Maybe you should get out." 

Not quite within striking range they circled, like animals preparing to attack.  Without realizing it Sakura was holding her breath, riveted.  Even from here she could see Li's dark eyes flash.

"Last chance."

The interloper's response was to throw a sudden and sharp punch at Li's face, and Sakura squeaked in surprise.  Li evaded it neatly, sliding to one side and knocking his arm clear, then delivered a quick jab to his chin.  Clearly dazed, he stumbled backward and Li helped him along by planting a hard kick on his chest.  He hit the pavement hard with a grunt, and Sakura winced in sympathy. 

Li was dispassionate about it.  "I warned you." 

His opponent snarled and threw himself across the sidewalk, slashing at Li's leg with something that flashed in the meager light.  Li darted back to avoid the switchblade and kept a wary distance, allowing the other to get to his feet.  Again they circled, but this time exchanged no words. 

Eagerly the intruder advanced, knife slashing in short quick strokes, but he didn't even get close before another smooth kick to the chest knocked him back.  He tried again with a wide, aggressive swoop of the knife towards Li's throat and Li made his move.  In a motion that was nothing less than pure grace he ducked and twisted, snatching his enemy's wrist and drawing it along his ribs.  It all happened at once: the flash of the knife, the anguished yell, the warm spray of blood splattered across her school blouse.  Too shocked to scream, Sakura watched Li snap his palm against the chin of his attacker and send him sprawling to the sidewalk. 

Scarlet blossomed across his shirt, from underneath the ripped jacket.  Panting, he tried to brace himself in an upright sitting position while Li watched.  He wasn't even breathing hard.

"That enough?"

And, of all things, the fallen one smiled.  "I think so.  They should be here any…"  He trailed off when Li stiffened, and then Sakura heard it too.  The low drone of another approaching motorcycle, too loud to be just one.  Motorcycles.

"My friends," announced the intruder, with more than a touch of satisfied smugness.  "Called them the second I saw you.  You didn't call your friends, did you, Li?"  The standing one clenched his fists, and the other's smile grew.  "Where are they, Li, where's your _pack_?"

The engines were getting louder, coming closer.  Sakura's heart thumped apprehensively in her chest and Li took a step back, the fleeting surprise in his expression erased by cold determination.  For the first time he looked directly at her, and that's when Sakura found out what it was _really_ like under the gaze of Li Syaoran.  All thought scattered.   

"You wanna go for a ride?"

Two long steps and he was there.  An iron grasp snatched her wrist and she was yanked from the sidewalk, books and purse and phone tumbling to the pavement.  His bike roared to life underneath her – how did he get her on it so quickly? – and when they shot out from the curb she screamed.  The world blurred around her and in reflex she clutched his waist.  Her last coherent thought was:

_They'll never see me alive again._

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Disclaimer:  I do not own these characters.

Somebody slap me, quick.  I've got a strange craving to continue this.

CCS cast:  Intervention!  (general tackling of author to ground)


	34. the best part

   
Topic: Icons  
Genre: fluffy fangirliness like you wouldn't believe  
Canon: post-anime  
Rating: PG-13  
Length: 730 words  
Special Requirements: Use one of your LJ user icons as inspiration for a short scene. (Even if it isn't a CCS-themed icon, the image or caption can be your inspiration.) Please use that icon when you post your response.  For my readers, the icon used was a close up of Touya's face.  
   
Tease:  Happy birthday, L-chan!

'**the**** best part'**

Hmm… Tomoyo took her time, mulling over the question in an unhurried manner, languid like only someone on vacation could be.  At first she thought it was just that, the simple freedom from all her cares and worries.  The car had no top, and there was nothing between them and the rich blue sky.  Tomoeda quickly disappeared behind them, going as fast as they were, and the warm wind whisked over them like it was blowing away all their stress.  It would have left her hair in terrible tangles but she'd braided it into loops for the ride, and all she had to do was bask in the last of August's sunshine and remember the words to the next song.  She sang freely, abandoning the prim and careful technique she'd practiced all her life, and it felt good.  He turned the radio down, a little, because he said she sounded better than the professionals.  The highway was long but the world around it beautiful, and she was almost sorry when they reached their destination.

But no, that was only the beginning.  In the afternoon the sunlight glittered on the water like a thousand diamonds, and the green trees rustled in a salt-smelling breeze.  They splashed in the surf to cool off and he swam for some time, working out the stiffness produced by hours behind the wheel.  He emerged from the water, lean dark body dripping with ocean, and she thought she would melt.  He was too beautiful to be real, too beautiful to even be captured on film.  No taping, for him, she would only look and she could look forever.

Perhaps not.  Perhaps it was hours later when she went to fetch a couple drinks, the afternoon sun now fierce with its heat.  She returned with the pina coladas and saw a pair of blonde Swedish tourists whispering and pointing, while he relaxed in the shade with a book.  The disappointment on their faces was priceless when she dropped onto the straw mat next to him, and automatically he draped his arm around her waist to pull her close.  He'd never even noticed them.

Or was it dinner?  On the patio with the sunset smearing the western sky in orange and pink and gold, all of it reflected like a smudged oil canvas in the still water below.  He complained it was silly to ogle sunsets, it happened every day and in any case it was the earth moving and not the sun.  She told him to hush and snuggled close, resting her head against his chest.  Sometimes, she said, it's better to appreciate something without knowing the reason. 

Are you talking about us?

No, I'm talking about the sunset.  Shh.

The vibrant colors faded and stars appeared, sprinkled like sugar crystals across the dusky velvet blue that he said matched her eyes.  They walked along the beach, shoeless, the surf splashing and gurgling about their feet.  They walked a long way, so very far away from the bungalows, and there was no one else to see.  Their kiss grew so ardent that he simply had to drop to the sand, and it didn't occur to her to protest.  The water slipped up the sand around her, soaking her, but what did that matter when his hands were gliding so softly under her dress?  It was silky soft, both the ocean and his touch, and once inside her he moved in a rhythm that matched the waves.  She arched her back, gasping his name… surely that was it. 

"The best part of the weekend?" Tomoyo repeated thoughtfully, gazing out their little window.  Behind her, Touya ran her hairbrush carefully through the long black strands. 

"Aa.  What did you like the most?"

She could hear the sound of his light breathing behind her, and felt the comforting warmth of his legs around her, and on impulse reached behind to stop the motion of the brush.  Tangles were less important than this, and she nestled against his bare chest.

"You," she finally answered.  "You're the best part.  I love being close to you."  His arms encircled her, trapping her against him and she thought she'd surely melt with happiness.  "Don't ever leave me."

"I won't."  The words came whispered into her ear and then he teased it slightly with his tongue, nibbling indulgently on the lobe.  "Happy birthday."

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Disclaimer:  Someday, he will be mine. 


	35. the dance

Topic:  Sound of Silence

Genre:  Action

Canon:  post-anime

Rating:  G

Length:  450

Task:  Write any story you like, but there can be no verbal communication.

Tease:  This is absolutely not up to the standards of the Shrine, but those on my friends list will understand.  Everyone has to vent. 

**'the dance'**

It began because they needed the cash, some extra yen on the weekends for smokes and beer.  Only in the darkest of streets, when there was no one else around.  At first.  Snatcher took the purse because he was fast, and light on his feet.  From behind he sprinted, whisking past his surprised victim and grabbing at the strap en route without even breaking stride.  A few steps and he hopped onto the waiting motorcycle; Driver took off and they vanished into the night.

It was wonderfully easy, and the payoff was excellent.  After a time they became braver, moving into the more crowded streets and sometimes not even waiting for sundown.  The routine was perfect, flawless, a well-executed dance.  Sometimes the victim screamed for help, sometimes the victim gave chase.  But it didn't matter.  Not her or anyone that came to her aid could ever catch Snatcher before he made it to the bike, and no one on foot could ever catch Driver.  They were a team, and together they waltzed effortlessly through the streets.

The dance this day began no different.  The sun was almost behind the trees and the park emptied of people; they'd all scattered for dinner.  The target was tossing birdseed for the pigeons, elderly and unlikely to chase.  The only others between her and Driver was a young couple, holding hands on a park bench and obviously in their own world. 

Snatcher sprinted, the first steps of the dance.  Soundlessly he sped toward her, and in silence he pushed.  She stumbled, uttered a muffled grunt, and he was away.  Spoils in hand, he settled into a hard run for the waiting bike.  The difficult part was finished now, the first steps of the dance were trickiest.  Confident of victory, he dashed towards his dancing partner and the end of the dance.

But this evening there was a flaw in the choreographed plan, a third dancing partner not accounted for.  Snatcher saw only a blur of movement on his right before the foot connected solidly with his stomach.  The impact was so hard and sudden it stopped his momentum cold, and he almost bent over double in pain.  The boy that cut into their dance spun, with perfect grace and no wasted motion – in a rather detached way Snatcher couldn't help but admire his footwork and polished style.  He spun, and the last thing Snatcher saw was the boy's heel aiming for his temple. 

From the curb, Driver watched his dancing partner fall to the earth and decided it was wise to go.  He would find another one, carry on with the dance with someone else.  So what if some boy managed to save one silly purse?  The dance would never end.

But he wasn't coming back to this park again. 

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Disclaimer:  I do not own Li, but I sure as hell would have liked to borrow him on Sunday night when those jerks robbed me.  I feel a little bit better, having written this, actually – maybe it's just in my imagination, but at least my purse snatcher got his ass kicked somewhere. 


	36. what could have been

Challenge: Five Things  
Canon: No. This is non-negotiable.  
Genre: Action/Romance  
Rating: G  
Words: 500  
Details: Pick a character, and write "Five things that never happened to..." Essentially, five miniature _alternate universe_ timelines.

Tease:  Kick-Ass! Li strikes again. 

**'what could have been'**

**'gallant knight'**

 He came out of nowhere, at the last moment, his sword the only thing keeping Rika's from her skull.

"Li-kun!"

"Baka," he snapped.  "Stay there."  He dropped to the sidewalk below to face her friend, and Rika attacked.  One sword scraped against another with a horrible screech, and then Li counterattacked with a series of short and sharp thrusts that pushed Rika back.  The blades flew so fast Sakura could hardly see them, flashing silver in the sunlight, slicing and stabbing with meticulous precision.  At last Li trapped Rika's blade under his hilt and twisted, throwing it far from her hand to the pavement. 

"Quick!  Seal it now!"

**'teamwork'**

"My cousin," Li informed his rival, "can handle herself.  So stay out of the way."  He warned her back with one sharp glare, then met Meilin's cool and determined gaze.  "Let's do it."

Fight raised her fists in preparation, and so did they.  She attacked first, targeting Meilin, who blocked two punches before throwing her own signature turning kick-reverse jump hook kick combination.  It forced Fight right into Li's hard side kick and actually made her stumble, and with no more communication than a brief moment of eye contact they set about to finish the job.  The Card did not last long.

**'gallant knight II'**

Tall as he was, the breeze was so much cooler.  Quite calmly Li drew his sword and eyed his opponent.  The dragon uttered a low growl and circled him a wide arc, red eyes hostile.  He'd never dueled a dragon before. 

The creature attacked with serpentine speed and he barely evaded it, his hurried counterattack glancing at its long neck.  Howling in rage and pain it reared up, wings outstretched, and the tiny girls below shrieked.  This time when it attacked Li was ready.  In the moment before Naoko put down her quill, his sword had gone through its heart.

**'potential'**

With an odd sense of detachment, the weary boy realized that he had nothing more.  His few Cards were not the right ones, his magic could not hope to compare, and he had spent all his energy.  After what seemed years, Li tumbled to his knees and stayed there.

Neither said anything for a long time.

"Never has one stood against me for so long," Yue murmured softly, almost too soft to hear over his own ragged breathing.  "It was a worthy battle, child of the Lis.  You have no cause to feel shame.  One day… you will be the greatest."

**'declaration'**

"Sakura, wait!"  Almost ready to fall over on his feet, Syaoran stumbled toward the girl in white.  She'd fought Eriol and conquered the last of her Cards, against all odds, and in her triumph he couldn't bear keeping the words in him one moment longer. 

He almost collapsed, propping himself up with the sword, and she rushed to his side.  "Syaoran-kun!"

"I- I love you."

She froze in shock; green eyes circular with astonishment.  For a moment he almost despaired.  But was he not a warrior?  Was he not strong? 

So he cupped her face and kissed her.

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Disclaimer:  Well, he practically IS mine.  Lord knows I've written enough challenges for him. 


	37. bring it on

**Topic:** Blackmail  
**Genre:** Humor, supposedly.  
**Canon:** Yes please  
**Length:** 100.  Whenever my muse takes a vacation, I settle for drabble.  
**Rating:** PG-13 for implications  
**Task:** Self-explanatory, isn't it? One character has a little 'something' holding over another, and they stoop to that lowest of the low.

**Tease:  **Wow, I suck.  Where is my challenge muse?  Of all things, this was inspired by:

**'bring it on'**

It began with Yamazaki's broken fingers, and a desperate girlfriend seeking to fill his place.  It continued on to begging, tears, and refusal.  In the end she pressed him against the wall with shirt snarled in her fists.

"You will, Syaoran," she hissed, and he never knew his girlfriend could look so scary, "or a _certain_ ancestor will hear about how a _certain_ someone begs me to call him 'Aragorn' in bed."

A fair amount of blood drained from his face.  "You wouldn't."

"I _would_."

(two days later)

Li closed his eyes and prayed for death.  "Go team go."

"More spirit, Syaoran!  You're a cheerleader!" 

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Disclaimer:  Don't own him.  And boy is he ever glad.


	38. inquisition

Challenge: A Different Point of View  
Canon: pre-anime  
Genre: drama  
Length: 1,500  
Rating: G

Task: Only a vague similarity to the Mary Sue challenge, I swear. Your mission is to write one or more of the CCS cast through the eyes of an original character - whether that original character likes or deeply hates them. MUST be either first person or limited third person.

**'inquisition'**

_In the year of our Lord eighteen and three, the eighth day of November, this Reverend was called upon by his congregation for a trial against a wicked craft.  A stranger to the town of __How Caple__, his unorthodox skills and clear disdain for the church hinted at dark practice._

In the otherwise silent study of Reverend Rowan Williams, a quill scratched the words in his neat calligraphy.  Mere inkstains on parchment in a flickering pool of candlelight, mere words that could never really tell the story of such a bizarre trial.  He could try but they would never tell of the strangeness of the accused, a man who looked upon a mob of suspicious and frightened villagers and smiled. 

_His name was Reed, British in name but a foreigner to our land.  He came from the East, bearing such odd objects of Oriental make and able to speak strange tongues.  His manner was polite but aloof, and never did he entreat our townsmen to grace his hall.  Neither did he attend our Sunday Service._

The peculiarities were only the beginning.  His rare appearances in the village unsettled the people, but the oddities of the weather after his arrival unsettled them more.  Rainfall when the rest of the country was beset with dryness, storms of most spectacular lightning that came out of season, and an unusual frequency of rainbows. 

_He dwelt in the Reed Manor of his father's family, which had lain empty for much of a decade, and hired no servants.  Yet our townsfolk did many times bear witness to loud and strange noises from within his estate, and also sightings of a mysterious nature._

How the accusations piled upon one another in the meeting house this day.  One man claimed he saw a girl riding in a cloud, another swore he saw a woman in a pink gown dancing through the gardens.  A shrill and hysterical woman insisted that a bizarre creature, like a lion bearing the wings of a bird, snatched a cooling pie off her kitchen windowsill – terrifying her so much so that she dropped in a faint.  The unruffled Reed asked how that last one could possibly be linked to him and she was quite bereft of an answer, but unswayed in her certainty. 

_Most terrifying to the congregation was the safety of their children, many of whom found a fascination with the Mister Reed and his Oriental artifacts.  Many times the young and impressionable children told their parents of his fabulous 'magick tricks' with bubbles and fireflies, and pockets full of neverending sweets._

The breaking point came the previous Monday, on the night of All Hallow's Eve.  Almost every child in the village claimed to see fairies and ghosts in the night air, and hysterical parents demanded that Mister Reed come to trial for his actions.  Confronted with the accusations of almost everyone in the town, the defendant's only concern was if the children had an exciting evening. 

_It was a confession of guilt, as far as the assembly was concerned.  I asked him many times if he caused the visions, and he invariably replied that he could not compare to the imaginations of our children.  Yet neither would he deny responsibility.  As final proof of his dark arts, I furnished the idolatrous cards I had taken off his person before the trial._

Often children told their parents that, in addition to his many tricks, the wonderful Mister Reed could also tell the future.  They claimed he predicted the future with these strange cards, and his predictions were eerily accurate.  The Reverend had heard of this witchcraft before, but he was surprised to see these cards differed from those heathen cards of the gypsy folk. 

_I asked this man if he believed he could read the future in these cards._  _He smiled in that strange manner and_ _replied that he merely related that which he saw.  I informed him that it was heresy to make such predictions rather than place faith in our Lord's guidance._

And Mister Reed, in his infuriatingly calm manner, replied that he was grateful the Reverend acknowledged he could indeed predict the future.  Such an answer flustered the Reverend, spoken before his watching congregation, and he denied there could be any such skill.

_I allowed him to perform his reading of the cards._

Mister Reed had showed him a card labeled Dark, and told the Reverend this was his soul.  He then turned over a card with a little girl, and said what he desired was Power. 

_I do not recall the specifics of his ritual._

The Reverend asked him directly if Mister Reed believed in some other power than the Almighty, and Mister Reed replied that he believed in all things he had seen and many he had not.  The Reverend asked him if Mister Reed engaged in the practice of witchcraft, and he answered that he engaged in the practice of improving the world. 

_Are you a witch? I asked, at last, quite impatiently._

And Mister Reed told him that the answer to that was quite simple and very obvious.  If it had not come to the Reverend yet, it would soon enough.

_Having all but declared his own guilt, I had no choice but to end the trial._

It was more than sufficient evidence in the townsfolk's eyes; mollified, they returned to their homes.  Mister Reed was escorted to a locked shed beyond the meeting house that served as their jail.  Twilight fell, and the town selectman and his wife took a dinner to the doomed man. 

Inside the still-locked shed, they found no one.  An angry crowd stormed his manor, again, and found no one or nothing.  A table was the only furniture left in the vast house, and on it an envelope addressed to Reverend Rowan Williams. 

_It's very obvious, Reverend, is it not?  The many witches that the church has prosecuted and executed in the past could not have been, for the simple fact that they could not escape.  As for me…_

_Now you know._

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, or at least one of them.


	39. legendary fists of the iron dragon maste

Challenge: Culture Vulture  
Canon: Yes  
Rating: PG-13  
Length: 720 words  
Summary: We all know raving fangirls and boys (in some cases, ourselves!), but what about the CCS characters? What movies, books, anime, manga, music, etc., makes them all hanyaan?

Tease:  Enter his world if you dare, but beware the bad subbing.

**'legendary fists of the iron dragon master'**

"Ne, Syaoran?"

"Yeah?"

"We've been doing this for hours.  Aren't you tired of it?"

"No."

"Oh."  _(sigh)_  "It's just that… when you said you wanted to watch the Legends of Kung Fu weekend marathon – I didn't think you meant the _whole_ weekend.  Are you aware that it is now almost Sunday?  Syaoran?"

"Huh?"

"I said, are you aware that -"

"Shh, watch, this is a good part.  See how he uses the chain whip as ballast to swing around the pillar and- oh, check out that high twist kick to the henchman's face.  Smooth as silk.  Isn't he great?"

"Yes, Syaoran, Jackie Chan is great."

"We're not watching Jackie Chan anymore, Sakura, that was last movie."

"Huh?  You mean we're still not watching _Young Master_?"

"_Young Master_ was in the afternoon, you're thinking of _Legend of the Drunken Master_.  And no.  We've been watching _Fist of the Red Dragon_ for a while now."

"Oh.  Bruce Lee, right?"

"No, Bruce Lee is _Enter the Dragon_ and _Return of the Dragon._  Remember when he ripped out Chuck Norris' chest hair?"

"I remember you cheering him on."

"Gwei lo had it coming."

"So who is this, then?"

"Donnie Yen.  He also did _Iron Monkey_, we watched that at lunchtime."

"Oh."  _(pause)_  "Syaoran?"

"Mm?"

"I know I said I wanted to get to know your hobbies better, but I'm not so sure I can handle this." 

"…Huh?"

"Are you even listening?"

"Yeah.  Hey, we're out of popcorn.  Can you make more?"

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"Thanks."

"…That's it?"

"What's it?"

"Aren't you going to ask why it took over an hour?"

"You were in there an hour?"

"Yes, I called Tomoyo-chan so I could complain about your male insensitivity to my needs in the face of overwhelming kung fu movie obsession."

"Uh-huh.  You should know we're on a new movie, then, this one is _Once Upon a Time in China_, based on the life of the martial artist Wong Fei Hung."

"…"

"It's a Jet Li."

"Relative of yours?"

"It's possible.  I'd rather believe I'm related to Bruce Lee, though, and English transliteration confused the descendants.  Bruce kicks Jet's ass."

"So you won't care if I turn this off?  Ouch!"

"Touch that remote again and I will rain much suffering upon you and your kin."

"… You've been watching these movies for too long, Syaoran." 

"Jet might not be the best, but the story's a good one.  We're beginning a trilogy.  Next is _The Last Hero of China_ and then _Legend of the Swordsman_.  We _have_ to watch that one, it's my favorite of the three."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"_Fist of Legend_ is probably his best, though."

"Hang on, I was sure that one was Bruce Lee.  That's what we were watching at dinner.  You remember, when I made you that okonomiyaki from scratch?"

"You're thinking of _Fist of Fury_.  We ate dinner?"

"…"

"Notice the traditional Chinese _jian_ they're using here.  It's a straight-edged, double-bladed sword, not like the curved _katanas_ you Japanese use.  All that fuss about Kenshin and his reverse-blade sword… heh.  He'd have been slammed if he tried to take on China."

"…Maybe I should go, Syaoran.  I wouldn't want to come between you two."

"Whatdja say?"

"I wanted to get to know you better, Syaoran, I wanted to learn about your hobbies and spend quality time with you, but this is insane.  I've been staring at a TV screen for 14 hours now and you haven't even noticed that I'm here.  I give up, we have nothing in common.  There's no connection."

"Are you talking about _The Chinese connection_?  That's Bruce Lee too."

"That's it.  I'm going home- Syaoran?  What are you doing, let go of my wri- hey!"

"Did you think I would allow you to escape me so easily?"

"But Syaoran- mmpf." 

"What was that?"

"…Wow.  You've never kissed me like that before."

"These movies get me in a certain mood, sometimes."

"Oh, well I- mmpf."

"Silence, little peasant girl.  You belong to me now."

"…mm.  Well, if this is how you are now, I…mmm… can't wait to see what you're like after Legend of the Swordsman."

"You'll find out soon enough."

"I think-mmm… I think I like these movies after all…"

**the end**

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disclaimer: I do not own these characters

Yes, it was goofy.  But don't lie and say you didn't at least smile.


	40. keroberos little

Topic: Secret Santa (Christmas prompt exchange)

Genre: fluffy

Canon: pre-anime

Length: 590 words

Rating: G

Task:  Tell us about Kero and Yue's first snowfall, as requested per cygnahime.

**'Keroberos Little'**

"AAIIIEEEE!"

Keroberos' bellow shook the mansion to its foundation, causing all the candlestick flames to flicker and shattering the crystal Yue had been struggling for most of an hour to produce.  Shards flew everywhere and the moon creature flinched, then cast a scathing look at the door. 

_No, Yue, you will not kill Keroberos.  He is your brother.  You love him.  Really._

"YUUU-WEHHHH!"

Hardly had he the chance to stand before his counterpart burst through the study doors and came at him in full gallop. 

"What the -"

"YUUU-WEHHH!" his brother shrieked again, and leapt.  Yue was flat on his back before his mind could process what happened, Keroberos pinning him to the rug.  The reduction of the space between Kero's mouth and Yue's ear to mere inches, however, did not compel Keroberos to lower his voice.  "The WORLD is ENDING!"

_You will not kill Keroberos, you will not you will not you will – _

"What?"

"It's ending, it's ending!"  His golden eyes had gone circular with panic, his fur all standing up on end.  "Look!"

His great jaws clamped over Yue's shoulder, and much to his astonishment, he found himself being dragged across the room like a wild animal's prey.  "Keroberos!  Release me at once or I'll -"

"Look!" Keroberos interrupted, rather muffled until he spat Yue back out onto the floor.  "See?  Look outside, the sky is falling and the world is coming to an END!"

Hand on his bruised shoulder, Yue opened his mouth to heap abuse upon Keroberos and then stopped short.  His excitable feline sibling had dumped him by the sill of the study's large and lavish window, its velvet curtains not yet drawn in the fading daylight.  Outside, the afternoon air was thick with peculiar white flakes, each drifting steadily earthwards and sticking to the ground. 

"See?" Keroberos yelped, in his ear of course.  "Look at what's happened to the rain!  It's turned to ash and the world's endin' and we're all gonna DIE!!"

"Stop _shouting._  The world isn't going to end!" 

"Oh yeah?  Well how do _you_ know?  Do you know what that white stuff is?"

"No," Yue admitted uncertainly.  "But the world isn't going to end."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because Master Clow would have known, and he would have said so!"

"Well maybe he _didn't_ know about this!"

"He would!"

"The world is ending!"

"Is _not_."

"Fine, we'll ask him!  And if I'm right, I get your dessert!"

"Idiot cat, if you're right then there won't _be_ any desserts ever again."

Kero's expression achieved a new level of panic with that realization, so much so that Yue was almost tempted to laugh. 

"_CLOW!!"_

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"Another handful, Yue?"

"Yes, thank you, Master Clow."  Yue accepted another mound of the stuff and patted it in place, rounding out the belly of this strange sculpture.  "This s-no is quite interesting, after all.  I'm enjoying this."

"Glad you're having fun," Keroberos muttered spitefully.  From within his cocoon of snow he glared at the both of them.  "But why do _I_ have to be inside the snowman?"

"You should have more faith in me, Keroberos."  Clow tapped him on the nose and smiled.  "Don't worry.  If the end of the world ever comes, I shall be sure and tell you.  In the meantime, I have a special treat for you that I think you will like."

Yue's little brother perked up.  "Treat?"

"Yes.  I invented it myself and it took me some time to designate a suitable name, but I've taken to calling it… a snow-cone."

_the end_

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Disclaimer: Do not own these characters

Members of the Shrine all put their names and fic prompts into a hat, and what our lovely mod drew was the Christmas assignment for each of us.  Cygna Hime had requested a story telling of Kero and Yue's first snowfall, and this leapt to mind.  Quite possibly the fluffiest thing I've ever written. 


	41. end of the earth

Topic: Twisted  
Genre:  Action, Psychological, Dark  
Canon: post-anime  
Rating: PG-13  
Length:  2,730  
Special Requirements: Remember your OTP (one true pairing), and how it's so sweet and fluffy and pure? Yeah. Now write this pairing in a way that makes it dark, disturbing, or just plain wrong.  
Tease:  There's no distance he won't travel, no risk he won't take to be with her again.  To save her, he'd go to the end of the earth. 

**'end of the earth'**

Li Syaoran paused, trembling, waiting, the cold moist air clammy against his skin.  All the heat had been drained away, his blood sucked inward as if to a sponge, leaving the flesh pale and dewey with unnatural sweat.  Sweating in cold like this was not right, and it wasn't going to help matters any, but there wasn't anything he could do about that right now.  Raw winter air knifed into his lungs as he gasped for air, sharp and cold, and his fingers curled against the freezing ground.  Maybe now it was over.

No.  Another shudder gripped his stomach and he tipped forward, emptying the last of its contents on the snow, retching every last painful bit of it before he would allow himself to believe he'd finished.  Hands shaking, he pushed himself back onto his rear and wiped his brow, breathing unsteadier than before.  His heart was beating too quickly.  Vomiting had brought relief, but he was disgusted with his weakness and impatient with the delay, not to mention annoyed that he'd lost all the calories he needed from that food.  Li had to be strong, Li couldn't afford to stop and throw up in the snow just because he was worried sick (literally) for his girlfriend.  But Li couldn't help that he loved her, so much so that since her kidnapping he'd been forced to endure visions of what she was going through.  A bond through their magic, a curse on his soul.  He didn't want to see her kidnapper tearing away her clothes and forcing her down on her knees –

His stomach contracted in warning and Li put a stop to the thoughts, willfully pushing away the sick images plastering his mind.  Delays would not do.  She'd been gone for five days now, five very long nights, during which he'd had not more than three hours of a very nightmarish sleep.  Five days of torture, and he would not let it be six.  He was close now, he could find her.  He would save her.  A handful of clean snow in his mouth helped to rinse away the bile and he spat it out when he stood, hands still shaking but vision a little clearer.  White fields stretched away from him in all directions, trees loaded with tufts of snow grouped around the small country store.  Hokkaido deserved its reputation of beauty, but it was too cold for his taste, too quiet and lonely.  A place where a girl could be taken and disappear forever, lost in the wilderness. 

He was feeling better now.  Walking with only a little stumble now and then, he crossed the distance between his car and the store, a tiny bell on the door announcing his entrance.  An older man behind the counter, probably the owner, looked up with a smile. 

"Good evening, sir, how are you today?" 

"Fine," he lied, and scanned the store quickly.  Not another in sight.  Hand went into his pocket, and he produced the small and creased wallet-size photo he'd carried for five days and five nights.  "I'm looking for this girl.  She's about twenty, same as me, I think she might have been in this area.  Have you seen her?" 

The owner's gaze lowered to Sakura's frozen smile and his muscles tensed, his amiable expression switched off and then on again in a heartbeat. 

"Er- no.  Sorry, sir, but I haven't seen this young lady.  And I know everyone in these parts." 

_Liar._  Li forgot he was weak and sick, forgot the trembling hands and his sputtering heart, and snatched the man's collar in one clean grip.  He might lower himself to throwing up in the snow but if nothing else he could still fight, could always fight.  It was quite effortless to drag him over the counter and toss him to the floor at Li's feet.  He yelled, of course, but that wouldn't do him any good.  His hands braced against the floorboards to scramble away from Li, but froze when Li flicked open a switchblade.

"Please," Li panted, feeling the effects of his sudden burst of activity.  "I don't want to hurt you, but if I have to I will.  Tell me." 

The owner's mouth flopped open, eyes focused solely on the silver blade in Li's grip but unable to produce a sound. 

"You've seen her.  I know you have, I could see it in your eyes.  Everyone that sees her remembers it." 

Helplessly, the owner nodded. 

"Why did you lie?"

"She- she begged me…"

"She's been kidnapped, someone is threatening her to stay silent."  At that the owner looked surprised, and hesitated.  "Please," Li added, hating the way his voice broke in the middle of the word.  "She's been missing for five days, and I'm so afraid for her I can't eat.  I can't sleep.  Whoever did it is hurting her, and he might kill her.  Just tell me where she is, and I will leave you alone." 

His eyes were terrified and bewildered, darting back and forth between the knife to his white and haggard face.  He would count to five, and then start cutting.  One.  Two.  Three-

"The house," his informant stammered.  "Just up the road, and right at the old windmill.  It's been rented out recently, don't know to who." 

A lead.  Li exhaled breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and retracted the lethal blade.  "Thank you.  You did the right thing." 

Looking rather ashen, the owner nodded quickly and averted his eyes.  He should help him up but Li was feeling none too steady on his own feet, and too eager to get going anyway.  Sakura was just an arm's length away now, stupid to dally.  Without even glancing back at the floor Li strode past his victim and back out the door, retracing the path his footsteps had left in the snow.  He ignored the mess not far from his car, slipped back into the front seat, and rekindled the engine.  His breath was clouding up ever faster; his breath had begun to speed up.  Heartbeat, too.  "Not long now, Sakura," he whispered into the vapor of his own breath.  "Hang on.  I'm coming."

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The white fields rolled past him, driving up the road, unbroken white snow looking soft as powder under a gray evening sky.  It might snow again, but he wasn't sure, unfamiliar with the stuff and a stranger in this remote northern part of Japan.  This country that he wouldn't belong to were it not for Sakura, leading a life he would have never led if he had not laid eyes on her.  Sometimes Li felt a dull panic in his chest when he considered all that he'd given up for her, how much of himself had changed because of her.  And that was when she was close by; when she was gone the panic sharpened and made it painful to draw breath.  Like a rubber band stretched too far to snap back into its original shape, he'd stretched too far beyond the boy of ten from Hong Kong who thought only of magic and power.  He couldn't go back but he couldn't stay here without her, couldn't live without the one who changed him.  Her kidnappers were about to find out what a dangerous mistake they'd made, when he found this house, no one took his Sakura away from him and survived. 

He pulled over and killed the engine when he spotted the described house on the horizon, a small and cozy dwelling nestled into the snow with a few telltale puffs of smoke above the chimney.  Someone was home.  Again Li's syncopated heartbeat was accelerating, his breath wheezing out of his lungs.  If only he'd been able to get more sleep, if only he'd been able to hang onto his lunch.  Silent as a cat he wended from one tree to the next, closing in on the unwary home with its brilliant yellow windows, silently astonished at the ease with which he sidled up to the brick walls.  Did they not think him capable of tracking Sakura from Tomoeda to this place?  Did they not think he'd track her to the end of the earth, if he had to?  A rapid peep, through the closest window, lit all his blood on fire.

Sakura.  Standing, dressed and apparently uninjured.  But her kidnapper hovered close, was closing in on her, preparing to wreak another night of torture like that which Li had already seen too many times in his visions.  He only stole one more moment for a fast and deep breath when he returned to the front door, and then he kicked.  The door exploded away from the frame with a bang that startled even him, triggering a cacophony of noise that was a blur in his dizzy state.  He heard Sakura's surprised shriek, and the yell of her attacker as he jumped and then tried to push Sakura behind him so that Li could not get to her.  Five days, five nights, anguished nightmares and lunch left on the side of the road converged and then Li was on him; he did not even have time to reach for a weapon before Li kicked him straight up and into the chin.  He flew back, narrowly missing Sakura, and hit the floorboards with a crash. 

Now!  Li leapt on the unconscious kidnapper and smashed his fist into his face, then again, ready to bring death to the one that took Sakura away even if it meant crushing his body into nothing more than pulp on the floor.  His fist pulled up again but some force prevented him from touching the body below him, and then that force ballooned outward and threw him onto his back.  Li hit the wood hard, unprepared for such a thing, and groaned.  Sakura's Shield had done it, he knew the feel of her magic well.  If she had access to her Cards, why did she allow herself to be held captive for so long?

Hysterical sobbing threaded its way through the buzzing in his ears, and he realized she was crying.  Sakura was crying, and he picked himself up off the floor to go comfort her.  She was only an arm's reach away, or so he thought, but his body was falling apart and now even his depth perception had gone.  He had to take three or four steps to reach her and when he finally did they were near the door again.  He caught her before she could fall to the floor, and she crumpled in his arms. 

"Sakura!  It's okay, you're alright now, everything's going to be fine.  I'm right here."  Anxiously Li peeled back the hair from her damp face, searching for bruises or any kind of evidence to the injuries he'd seen in his mind.  But she'd covered it with her hands as she sank to her knees, shoulders shaking with the force of her cries, and Li could only hold her and try to soothe her as best he could.  "Shh…  shh.  Everything's going to be alright now." 

She cried a while longer, while Li held her to his chest and hummed platitudes, breathing in the sweet scent of her body and relishing her closeness.  It was all gone now, the dark fears that he would have to face this life without her, he could breathe again and his heart had slowed to an ordinary beat.  He'd found her, the most precious thing he'd ever known. 

"Why are you crying?" he asked, when she'd slowed to the occasional hiccup.  "Are you hurt?  Did he hurt you?"

"No… Syaoran," she whispered, "he didn't hurt me.  I'm just- happy.  I was so happy to see you." 

"I was happy to see you too.  I was so scared, Sakura, you were gone for so long.  I could hardly eat or sleep the whole time, and it was such a long time.  I never stopped looking for you, though, I hunted day and night.  Nobody else thought I could find you but I found you." 

He squeezed her a little closer to her chest and felt her nod, under his chin.  "That's right, Syaoran.  You found me." 

"Why did you stop me, Sakura?  I wanted to kill him, for what he did to you!"

"No!"  Her hands snarled in the material of his shirt, as if to keep him in place, and she repeated herself less urgently.  "No… please.  I don't want you to kill anyone, Syaoran, he doesn't matter anymore.  I'm fine and you found me, so please don't hurt him.  I'll call the police, and they can take care of him."

Li was not entirely appeased, but she was holding onto him so fervently and he decided it wasn't wise to upset her right now.  She'd been through a difficult time, after all.  But wasn't there something about the Shield Card… a question?  He'd had a question, just a minute ago, but now that he tried to think back he couldn't remember.  He really did try hard, but he was so tired.  It was only important that Sakura was with him again. 

"Were you scared, Sakura?  Did you think I wouldn't find you?"

"I thought… maybe…" 

"Nobody else could find you," Li pointed out, with just a touch of smug pride.  "They were all looking, and they thought you'd been taken south, but I looked on my own and I figured out it was Hokkaido.  It's a good thing you've got me, huh?"

She hiccuped, with what might have been another tiny sob. 

"But this is the third time you've been kidnapped," Li continued, a little more seriously.  "Too many people are after you, it's too dangerous.  From now on I won't let you go anywhere without me, I'll handcuff us together if I have to.  I can't take another week like this one again." 

She exhaled with a slight shudder, and he realized how cold it was here on the floor next to the open door.  "C'mon, we have to get out of here.  Time for us to go home." 

He would brook no argument and picked her up in his arms, carrying her so that her feet would not get cold in the snow.  The gray twilight had almost gone by the time he installed her in the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt for her, then returned to his place behind the wheel.  It was too far to drive all the way back to Tomoeda, but they could still put a fair distance between themselves and this horrible place, and then they'd sleep in a hotel.  He told her this and patted her hand, and she smiled wanly.  Thank all gods it was finally over.  He really did love her so much. 

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"Tomoyo-chan?  Tomoyo-chan, can you hear me?  I'm sorry, but I have to whisper."

Syaoran shifted slightly and Sakura tensed, checking cautiously over her shoulder.  But he was exhausted, after so many days of searching, and she'd waited an hour or two just to be safe.  With a little creative stretching and careful wiggling she'd been able to extract his phone from the hotel's bedside table, long experience having taught her that slithering out from under his arm would wake him instantly. 

Eyes pricking with fresh tears, her head returned to the pillow.  "Yes," she sighed, in answer to the question.  "He found me.  I don't know how… but he almost killed the alarm system man when he did.  I was so scared…

"No.  I know you'd help me, Tomoyo-chan, everyone would help me.  But I can't run away again, I'm terrified he'll kill someone or himself looking for me.  He's sick, Tomoyo-chan.  I can't leave him alone like this." 

Again Sakura peered back over her shoulder, at the lean and haggard face that belonged to the man she once loved.  Still did, maybe, in a way she couldn't explain to even Tomoyo-chan, the part of him that was buried under layers of obsession and violence and bizarre mental illness.  He would die, if she left him again, and knowing it chained her to him more effectively than any handcuffs he might one day use.  Two more tears rolled down the sides of her face. 

"I'm his, after all.  He'd hunt me to the end of the earth." 

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters


	42. snowstorm

**Topic: **Christmas Gift Exchange

**Word Count: **1000

**Rating:** PG

**To: **amythest_n_ice

**Prompt: **Write a scene for Yue and Touya on Christmas morning

**Tease: **_Hold your breath, and make no sound, and the snowfall will let you peek just this once. _

'**snowstorm'**

It was going to be one for the recordbooks. The thick, gray clouds had broken shortly after daybreak and snow had not stopped falling since, steadily clothing all of Tomoeda in white. It was not a gentle snowfall, millions of flakes twisting and whirling in the wind, obscuring what ought to have been a bright and brilliant Christmas morning. Yoko shivered and curled herself into a tighter ball, there under the fleece blankets, knowing the bed would be warmer but unable to tear herself away from the spectacle. It was not so often, lately, that she had the time to simply sit and watch the world outside.

The year had gone by so quickly. Her first two terms at Towa were packed with a full schedule of classes, and the college thespian troupe was active, talented, and therefore very demanding. She almost didn't have the time to notice she was dating her costar, but Shinji was very kind and good-looking, so she was happy to spend whatever scraps of free time she had with him. Last night was their first night together, a Christmas Eve for lovers, red wine and old movies. Neither of them had said 'I love you' just yet, but Yoko had a feeling it was coming soon.

She did not think about Kinomoto Touya so much these days. Her frantic schedule did not allow for it, and anyway she never saw him. He attended Towa too, but whatever course he was studying, it wasn't theatre. Yoko had always known they'd take different paths, and said her private goodbyes in her heart months ago. Kinomoto and his intense dark gaze had gone forever from her life, and she had moved on.

So it was something of a mild shock when she glimpsed a dark form against the whirling snow and realized she was looking right at Kinomoto himself. She blinked, checked again, but there could be no mistake. Shinji kept an apartment in a complex for students; maybe Kinomoto lived here too. But why was he standing out in the snow? He had come so close that she could have raised the window sash and shouted out to him, not that she would have considered it with Shinji asleep on the other side of the room. Even this close, he seemed so distant through a veil of snowflakes, every tiny fragment of white sharp and clear against his dark hair and black coat. If she squinted, with the knowing eye of an actress, she could see the tense set of his shoulders and the anger in his posture. He had come stalking through the blizzard to stand in the middle of nothing and glare at… what? Nothing at all?

His mouth opened and he started speaking, and it did not look as though he was doing it quietly. Yoko saw no phone. She only saw the unending snow swirling around him, as if he was arguing with the very storm itself. Silly. But Yoko was a student of theatre, and accustomed to fantastic stories. She remembered Kinomoto's polite but aloof nature, his reserve, the old junior high rumors that he could 'see' things. Maybe Kinomoto _could_ talk to snow. Maybe, if she looked very carefully, she could see what he saw in all that whiteness. If she used her imagination, she could pretend that snow whipping past him was really the long strands of silver hair. And that wasn't just the motion of snowflakes, but the rustle of white wings. When Kinomoto reached out with one hand and shoved, she could almost see it, that invisible figment of the snowstorm, stumbling back a step.

Yoko didn't really believe it. For all her love of acting, she was really a very practical girl. But it was Christmas morning, and the world was so very quiet all around her, Kinomoto disappearing and reappearing in the snow like a dream. No person could sit here at this window and not think she was watching something very strange indeed, something she'd never been meant to witness. She watched him pace a slow circle, never dropping his gaze from that vision that she absolutely did not _really_ see. He did not raise his voice to yell, the actress in her would have recognized a telltale lift of the chin, but he was speaking very forcefully indeed.

A shadow shifted – it was just a quirky little eddy of the wind, that's all – and Kinomoto quickly lunged to grab at something. He flung his arms around nothing at all, nothing but the whiteness of snow, and held on desperately. A fresh gust tossed more snowflakes around him, very still and silent now amidst the storm.

The nothingness that he held onto so tightly moved – did she glimpse a flash of blue? – and Kinomoto relaxed his grip. He tipped some weight back to his heels, but not very much, and not for very long. Riveted, breathless, Yoko watched him lean in and kiss the snow, long silver strands flying and snapping around him in the wind. For just a heartbeat, Yoko saw a face outlined against Kinomoto's much darker skin, revealed and then quickly covered by a snowstorm that did not like her spying. She didn't belong here, in this strange wintry world that Kinomoto Touya walked with such confidence, seeing and speaking to creatures beyond her understanding. She'd always known they would take different paths. Yoko had theatre, and Shinji. Kinomoto had something mysterious, strange, and wonderful.

At least, if his expression during the kiss was anything to go by.

Yoko stumbled back to bed after that, burrowing back under the warm covers and nestling close to her sleeping boyfriend. Without quite waking he draped an arm over her and held her close, enough to hear his beating heart. For as long as the snowstorm lasted, she did not look out that window again.

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Disclaimer: I do not own these characters

It occurred to me while listening to Enya's _And Winter Came_ that Yue would be very difficult to see in a real snowstorm. The image intrigued me enough to try writing one of my typical Touya/Yue spats from an outsider's perspective, and so this was born. Bonus points for those who can name the episode we met Yoko.


End file.
